A complete white-label SoftPOS solution: NFC phones become tap to pay terminals, reading cards through certified software (a PCI MPoC kernel on Android, Tap to Pay on iPhone), with merchant onboarding, KYC and a backoffice, branded as yours and owned 100% by you.
The product
The screens your customers use, in the order they meet them, shown with demo data. Your logo, colours and domain go on top.
Mobile app for iOS and Android
Before the first sale the app checks the phone itself: the NFC reader, the secure element, the location. Merchants take payments minutes after signing up.
A keypad, a note or a table number, and a charge button. Staff learn it in a minute.
The customer taps a contactless card, or a phone with Apple Pay or Google Pay, on the merchant's phone.
The phone turns to the customer to ask for a tip: preset percentages or a custom amount, added before the payment.
Approved in under a second, with the tip and the total, and a receipt by email, SMS or QR code.
Delivery
~30 days
Time to launch, on a 12-month scale
The terminal app exists in production form. We apply your brand, connect acquiring, onboard merchants, deploy, and hand over the source code.
2–3 months
Time to launch, on a 12-month scale
A unique acceptance flow (tipping, loyalty, multi-merchant fleets) assembled from the module library around the same proven core.
Licensing
Accepting cards for merchants is acquiring, a regulated payment service in the EU, the UK and the UAE. What you need depends on the market and on who signs the merchants: you, or a licensed acquirer.
PSD2 lists acquiring as a payment service. The competent authority where you have your head office grants it, and it can be passported across the EU. It asks for a business plan, initial capital, safeguarding of merchants' funds, governance and anti-money-laundering controls, and must decide within three months of a complete application. PSD3 and a Payment Services Regulation are set to replace PSD2; on 6 October 2026 EUR-Lex still lists both as ongoing.
Acquiring is a payment service under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, authorised by the FCA. It asks for a UK company with its head office in the UK, initial capital, a business plan, registered managers, usually including a head of compliance or MLRO, and safeguarding of merchants' funds under rules strengthened from 7 May 2026. The FCA must decide within three months of a complete application; smaller firms can register as a small payment institution.
Outside the DIFC and ADGM, mainland Dubai included, the Central Bank of the UAE licenses merchant acquiring under its Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation (Category I, II or III). It asks for initial capital, a chief executive resident in the UAE, compliance, risk and internal audit functions, and an escrow account or guarantee if merchants are settled after more than 24 hours. Since 16 September 2025, a new Central Bank law also covers platforms that facilitate payments. In the DIFC the DFSA, and in ADGM the FSRA, regulate money services under their own rules.
Many SoftPOS brands launch on a licensed acquirer's licence: it signs and pays each merchant, and you supply the app and the merchant tools. In the EU and the UK, technical service providers that never hold the funds, terminal providers included, are outside the payment services rules. Another route is becoming a licensed institution's registered agent. In the UAE, check either route with the Central Bank first.
We are not lawyers, so the licence route is yours to decide with counsel. We bring the tools your compliance team runs: merchant onboarding with KYB and underwriting rules, sanctions and PEP screening, fraud scoring, transaction monitoring with suspicious activity reports, a ledger reconciled daily with settlement files, and an audit log of every backoffice action. We also help you choose the acquirer.
Applying for the licence yourself? Paynoramic Consulting prepares its technical side with you
General information, not legal advice. Checked against the sources above on 6 October 2026.
Launch
The software takes about 30 days on the ready path. The licence, or the partner acquirer's approval and tests, usually take longer and set the date of the first real payment.
Assembled from
Each one running in production before it reaches your platform. See the whole library
How it works
One call. Tell us the product, the market and the launch date. We map it to the modules that already exist.
We pick the modules, apply your brand and set up your infrastructure. Every piece is already proven in production.
Your platform goes live on your domain, with your data, under your control.
Source code, documentation and the keys. The platform is yours, with no licence and no revenue share.
Questions
A one-off fee, scoped per module and agreed in writing, with no licence fee, no revenue share and no lock-in. Plan separately for the licence, or for working under a licensed acquirer, the contracts with the acquirer and the providers you choose (we help you get them), hosting on your own infrastructure, and a lab evaluation if your acquirer or the card schemes want your own MPoC listing.
Yes, if a licensed acquirer signs each merchant and pays them while you supply the app and the merchant tools: PSD2 excludes technical service providers that never hold the funds, terminal providers included (Article 3(j)). Signing merchants yourself is acquiring, and receiving their money ends the exclusion. Then you need payment institution authorisation, or registration as a licensed institution's agent.
Merchants use their own phone, with no card reader. On Android, a phone with NFC that passes the app's checks of its NFC reader, secure element and location; on iPhone, an iPhone XS or later with Tap to Pay on iPhone, where your acquirer supports it. When an issuer asks for a PIN, for example above the EU's limits for contactless payments without strong customer authentication, the customer enters it on the merchant's screen.
Whoever signs the merchants. A partner acquirer settles straight to each merchant's bank account, so the money never passes through you. If the money passes through you under your own licence, you must safeguard it: under PSD2 Article 10 in the EU, under FCA rules strengthened from 7 May 2026 in the UK, and in the UAE with an escrow account or guarantee when settlement takes over 24 hours. Payouts follow the acquirer's schedule, daily if it settles daily.
The software takes about 30 days. Real payments also wait on the acquirer's onboarding and tests, Apple's Tap to Pay entitlement, app store review, and your licence or agent registration. Only the last has a statutory clock: in the EU and the UK, the regulator decides a complete payment institution application within three months, and an agent's registration within two. In practice, the licence or the acquirer sets the launch date.
The card reading is: on Android in a certified PCI MPoC kernel, on iPhone in Tap to Pay on iPhone, which PCI SSC lists as an MPoC solution. PCI-recognised labs evaluate MPoC software such as kernels, attestation and monitoring services, and whole solutions. The card schemes decide, through your acquirer, whether you need your own listing and how you validate PCI DSS. New SPoC and CPoC submissions close on 31 October 2026.
Card payments go to Adyen, Checkout.com, Worldpay, Nuvei, Global Payments or Stripe, split between several if you like; an acquirer with its own licence connects its processing directly. Cards are read through Tap to Pay on iPhone and a PCI MPoC kernel on Android. Merchant onboarding uses Sumsub, Persona, Kyckr, OpenCorporates, Creditsafe, Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, DocuSign and Dropbox Sign; payouts use Wise Platform, Currencycloud, Nium, Adyen for Platforms or Stripe Connect.
You receive the full source code of the terminal app for Android and iPhone, the backoffice and the modules behind them, with infrastructure configuration and documentation. No licence fee, no revenue share, no lock-in. Connected providers, such as the certified kernel and Tap to Pay on iPhone, remain their own products. Loyalty, multi-merchant fleets or a second acquirer can be added later from the library, or by your own developers.
Guides
What it takes for a phone to accept card payments: the PCI standard behind it, card scheme approval, attestation and monitoring, and what a merchant needs on day one.
Paynoramic's Head of IT4 min read
What PCI DSS v4.0.1 asks of a payment gateway: who sets your validation level, when you need a Report on Compliance from a QSA, and how tokenisation and hosted fields shrink scope.
Paynoramic's Head of IT7 min read
Gateway, acquirer, payment facilitator or payment institution: where the licence line falls, how the card schemes register payment facilitators, what merchant KYB demands, and the UK and UAE rules.
Paynoramic's Head of IT7 min read
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