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Re:

Fiserv Completes First PIN-on-Mobile Transaction in Poland

Fiserv’s 2020 milestone was a first PIN-on-Mobile transaction in Poland, not confirmation that the pilot or a nationwide rollout was complete.
From TheFinanceBase Team5 min to read
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Fiserv announced on February 18, 2020, that it had completed the first PIN-on-Mobile transaction in Poland with Visa, Samsung and PayCore. The milestone was part of a Polish pilot—not evidence that the entire pilot had finished or that the service had launched nationwide. Fiserv was then describing the business as First Data; First Data is now part of Fiserv. Fiserv’s announcement said the solution was being piloted in Poland, and a December 2020 release still used that description.

What Fiserv announced

Fiserv described the transaction as a first-of-its-kind PIN-on-Mobile transaction. The announcement said the solution had completed security testing and was being piloted in Poland, with expansion planned for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. It did not announce a completed nationwide rollout, give a commercial launch date or report pilot performance figures.

The wording matters because a contemporaneous FinTech Futures headline said Fiserv had completed the pilot. Fiserv’s own release supports a narrower claim: the first transaction was completed while the Polish pilot continued. Its December 18, 2020 release also described the solution as still being piloted in Poland.

What PIN on Mobile means

PIN on Mobile is a SoftPOS capability: payment-acceptance software on a compatible mobile device lets a customer enter a PIN on the device’s screen instead of using a separate physical PIN pad. It is also called PIN on glass. In this case, the merchant’s device used NFC to accept contactless payments. Visa’s Tap to Phone is the broader model of using an NFC-enabled Android device as a contactless acceptance terminal.

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“No additional terminal” does not mean no hardware or payment infrastructure. The merchant still needs a supported NFC device, the relevant software, connectivity in the normal case, and an acquiring or payment-facilitator relationship.

How a transaction works

  1. The merchant opens the payment software on a supported NFC-enabled device.
  2. The customer taps a contactless card, an NFC-enabled phone, a wearable or another NFC device.
  3. If the transaction requires PIN verification and the implementation supports it, the customer enters the PIN through the secure software interface on the merchant’s screen.
  4. The payment request is routed through the merchant’s acquiring and card-network infrastructure for authorization.

Fiserv promoted PIN support as enabling transactions beyond contactless cases that do not require a PIN. The company said the solution could accept payments “of any amount”; that is a company claim, not a guarantee for every card or transaction. Issuer decisions, card-network rules, risk controls and local implementation still apply. Visa’s Tap to Phone explanation likewise describes PIN capability in relevant use cases as addressing contactless transaction limits.

What each company contributed

Participant Role in the announced solution
Fiserv / First Data Solution provider within the payments and acquiring ecosystem.
Visa Approved the capability through its Tap to Phone program for contactless authorization with PIN capture.
Samsung Provided the selected mobile-device platform; the release did not say every Samsung model was supported.
PayCore Provided EMV software that enabled transactions through the Fiserv solution.

These roles are distinct: the announcement did not identify Samsung as the acquirer or Visa as the supplier of the merchant app.

Why PIN capture could matter to merchants

Mobile acceptance can suit businesses that take payments away from a fixed checkout or cannot justify dedicated terminal equipment. Fiserv and Visa cited mobile service providers such as plumbers, landscapers and couriers, along with micro-merchants. A phone-based checkout can reduce equipment dependence and make it easier to take card-present payments in the field. Those are intended benefits, not independently measured cost savings from the Polish pilot.

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For a small business, the practical question is whether the complete service fits its payment workflow—not simply whether a phone can read a card. Before adopting any comparable service, a merchant should check:

  • Which device models, operating systems and security patch levels are supported, and whether the device has NFC.
  • Whether the service supports PIN capture, which card schemes and card types it accepts, and whether it is available through an acquirer in the merchant’s country.
  • Connectivity and offline-payment rules, plus receipts, refunds, reversals, tips, reporting and settlement arrangements.
  • Device-integrity controls, software updates, merchant onboarding, support and chargeback procedures.
  • Whether the screen is practical for PIN entry, how customer privacy is protected, and how devices and staff credentials are controlled if the device is shared.
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Security and practical limits

Fiserv said the solution had completed security testing, and said Visa approved it for contactless authorization with PIN capture through Tap to Phone. PayCore supplied EMV software. These claims establish what the companies said about the implementation, but the announcement did not describe the full certification scope, PIN-protection design or operational controls. It does not establish universal PCI certification, approval by every scheme or regulator, or protection against every form of device compromise.

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Visa’s broader Tap to Phone material explains that the model builds on EMV chip-transaction security, including dynamic cryptograms. That is useful background, not a technical audit of the particular Polish pilot. A phone can also create operational trade-offs compared with a dedicated terminal: battery, connectivity, damage, screen size and customer comfort with entering a PIN on a merchant-owned device. A device that lacks NFC, is not approved or fails security checks may not be usable. The Fiserv announcement did not report these as pilot incidents; they are implementation questions merchants and providers need to resolve.

Poland, expansion plans and what remains unknown

Fiserv said in December 2020 that Poland had more than one million payment terminals and argued that connecting smartphones and tablets to the acceptance network could help extend cashless-payment use and improve merchant cash flow. That figure and assessment were Fiserv’s market framing. In February, the company also pointed to a European opportunity, but the release’s cited estimate of more than 23 million micro-merchants without terminals should not be treated as independently established market sizing without its underlying methodology.

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The February 2020 release named EMEA and APAC as planned expansion regions; that was an intention, not a confirmed schedule or evidence of availability in any particular country. The public announcements did not disclose the Polish pilot’s participating merchant count, transaction volume or value, approval or fraud rates, customer usability results, end date, pricing, full supported-device list or a commercial launch date.

There is later evidence of the broader capability in Fiserv’s March 29, 2022 announcement with Magnati in the United Arab Emirates, which described SoftPOS accepting contactless payments on Android smartphones and tablets with PIN on glass/PIN on mobile. That shows continued use of the capability in another market; it does not establish the Polish pilot’s final outcome or scale.

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