French PoS software company Ingenico has acquired Phos, a provider of software for turning mobile devices into PoS terminals.

Bulgarian firm Phos enables off-the-shelf smartphones or tablets to become payment terminals while complying with security standards.

Uses for soft-PoS include enabling small merchants and solopreneurs to accept digital payment in a world where cash payments are declining. However, it also allows enterprises to equip their sales associates with tablet-type devices for in-aisle payments acceptance.

Phos has developed a soft-PoS orchestration platform combining connectivity with flexible user interfaces. With a suite of services available, including acquirer integration and certification-as-a-service, Phos brings connectivity options quickly, easily and securely to its partners. This enables any contactless form of card payment from the main international payment schemes as well as digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, and QR code-based payments.

The Phos app is available for multiple user interfaces, offering dynamic branding based on the user profile and a white-label version. Phos features app-to-app and web-to-app API-based integrations, as well as a software development kit (SDK) for embedded payment acceptance.

The company has established the necessary connections to financial services where it operates and has active client and partner launch projects across all high growth markets.

This deal continues Ingenico’s expansion into different ways of serving its clients. It complements Ingenico’s PPaaS (payments platform-as-a-service), which enables clients, such as acquirers, payment service providers and independent software vendors, to design and seamlessly deliver payments and value-added services at the point of sale on Ingenico and non-Ingenico devices.

“We are delighted to join Ingenico and this transaction marks a significant step in the development of Phos,” said Brad Hyett, CEO of Phos. “Since the company was founded, we have been a pioneer in our field, and we see a natural fit with Ingenico given their strong focus on delivering best-in-class innovative payments-as-a-service. We see strong customer demand and significant double-digit growth in the soft-PoS addressable market worldwide and are convinced that Ingenico will help us capture more of that market and explore new use cases with clients globally. We look forward to accelerating the business together with the Ingenico teams over the coming months.”

Giulio Montemagno, general manager of PPaaS for Ingenico, added: “Our clients and partners around the world have clearly identified soft-PoS as one of the biggest opportunities they see right now. They consider soft-PoS a strategic option to engage with new customer segments and develop and test innovative use cases at scale, with minimum incremental investments in technology and distribution. They are looking to Ingenico, as their trusted partner in payments acceptance, to help them do that. We are very excited to bring this high-quality opportunity to our valued customers by partnering with the talented teams at Phos.”