Florida-based real-time payments firm ACI Worldwide has teamed up with MagicCube to deliver secure and seamless contactless payments on commercial off-the-shelf smartphones and tablets.

Californian software company MagicCube created the i-Accept payment system.

The combined offering uses tap to pay with or without pin and aims to provide mid-size and large retailers operating in complex environments with device-agnostic control and visibility of transaction data. This comes on the heels of MagicCube’s announcement extending its platform to big-box retailers.

Among the ACI capabilities powered by i-Accept are multi-acquirer and multi-merchant support from one platform and direct integration into complex systems with no impact on the PCI payment card industry data security standard scope or certification. It also offers flexible management of acceptance rules across numerous geographies and message translation across different standards.

“We are proud to launch our partnership with MagicCube to expand their industry-leading offering for growth beyond traditional and legacy payment terminals,” said Basant Singh, head of ACI Worldwide’s merchant segment. “ACI’s payments orchestration platform gives thousands of merchants and payment service providers globally the tools and technology to increase conversion rates and grow their business by making payments part of a smooth, seamless, and secure customer journey.”

I-Accept empowers financial services institutions to enable large merchants and retailers to accept contactless transactions through payment cards and mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Uniquely, i-Accept adapts to local card schemes and crypto wallets and supports buy now, pay later programmes. It also allows for secure pin capture on an off-the-shelf device screen without the need to scramble or shuffle the pin entry device keys, making the transaction experience intuitive and efficient for the customer.

“We are excited to extend a cutting-edge, truly secure, and scalable payment acceptance experience to thousands of merchants in the ACI network around the globe,” said Sam Shawki, CEO of MagicCube. “I-Accept takes the complexity out of moving the checkout experience beyond the cashier’s desk and enables merchants of all sizes – even the largest ones, with sophisticated backends and compliance needs – to offer better shopping experiences to their customers with seamless tap to pay on any smart device, including phones, tablets and touch screens”.

Singh added: “Our team did rigorous testing before certifying MagicCube on our platform. The inclusion of i-Accept within ACI’s payments orchestration platform gives merchants of any size, including tier one, the capability and freedom to securely transact beyond the standard register, meeting consumers where and when they want to make purchases.”

MagicCube is in the software defined trust (SDT) category with its software-based, virtual trusted execution environment (vTEE) platform. The technology enables secure, large-scale deployment and management of IoT and mobile offerings to consumers. MagicCube was awarded the first recognition of a software-based TEE issued by EMVCo, the global consortium which facilitates worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions.