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MagicCube Inc. announced Monday that Dojo, a United Kingdom-based payments provider, will adopt MagicCube’s i-Accept software, which converts off-the-shelf mobile devices into point-of-sale terminals. Dojo will integrate i-Accept into its SoftPos + PIN platform in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
The integration is expected to give Dojo a competitive edge by providing small and mid-sized merchants a more economical alternative to single function, hardware-based mobile POS devices that they can readily deploy throughout their business. Restaurants, for example, can use i-Accept to place a mobile POS device at each table instead of having to rely on one or two devices for its entire operation.
As a result, MagicCube says, merchants can use a mobile device to accept payments and orders in a contactless environment without having to buy or rent a payment terminal.
“Dojo controls 25% of the medium merchants in the United Kingdom, which is a big contactless country. Many [of Dojo’s merchants} are restaurants and bars where Dojo can put a tablet on each table instead of one or two shared [devices] for an entire restaurant,” Sam Shawki, chief executive for Santa Clara, Calif.-based MagicCube says by email. “I-Accept delivers full tap and PIN capabilities. All our customers have to do is integrate and make it available to their merchants.”
I-Accept will also give Dojo’s merchants an improved user experience and enable over-the-air updates and upgrades, according to Shawki. I-Accept’s fully contained modules are compatible with acquiring-bank or merchant-acceptance solutions. The application also supports remote provisioning and risk management and mitigation, and can be integrated using simple application programming interfaces.
“i-Accept will basically future-proof [a] SoftPOS + PIN offering,” Shawki adds.
Dojo’s SoftPos + PIN solution, which is currently being tested with a variety of merchants throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, will initially work with Android devices at launch. Dojo’s portfolio comprises more than 80,000 merchants.
“MagicCube is compatible with Apple devices/iOS systems, if and when Apple unblocks [near-field communication] for all vendors,” says Shawki, who adds that once the trials are completed, Dojo plans to rapidly scale the technology.
The foray into the U.K. and Ireland follows the launch earlier this year of i-Accept in Brazil. MagicCube, which has also enjoyed a successful adoption of i-Accept in Japan, secured its first toehold in the U.S. market when it signed an unnamed merchant to support i-Accept in December. I-Accept allows mobile devices to accept contactless cards from American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa.
“Simply by downloading a mobile app, millions of sellers worldwide can now accept contactless payments anywhere, anytime,” Pratap Gautam, a vice president for Visa in Europe, said in a prepared statement.
