Stripe expands Tap to Pay to Android, turning NFC-enabled Android devices into payment terminals

Stripe, the payments and financial services upstart, made waves in the world of mobile commerce last year when it became Apple's first payment partner for "Tap to Pay," the iPhone giant's move to turn any iOS device into a payment-making or payment-taking terminal. Now, Stripe is expanding that business by a factor of googol. From today, businesses that use Stripe Terminal to take in-person payments now will be able to carry out Tap to Pay transactions on NFC-equipped Android devices, too.

From what we understand, Stripe is the only payments company providing Tap to Pay on Android currently. (Apple's expanded its list, though, so Google likely will, too.)

It will support payment methods using Google Pay, Mastercard, Visa and American Express debit and credit cards; and it will integrate with third-party merchant platforms that typically provide bridging through to different segments of the small business community. Examples include Squire (focused on barbershops), Fareharbor (tours, activities, rentals), Oddle (restaurants) and GiveTap (cashless donations).

Tap to Pay is currently live in six markets -- U.S., Canada, the U.K., New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. Stripe plans to expand that list, but it declined to give a timeline on when and where that will happen. Expanding to these six countries is a sizable opportunity, though: collectively, those countries have 225 million Android users, as well as a very wide swathe of smaller businesses that might otherwise be reluctant to move to contactless payments if it means buying costly new hardware.

“Stripe’s launch of Tap to Pay on Android puts contactless payments hardware into the pockets of millions of businesses around the world. Now any business can set up in-person checkout in minutes,” said John Affaki, Terminal business lead at Stripe, in a statement.

The deal underscores how Stripe continues to ramp up the pace when it comes to transactions, revenue and eventually profit on its platform -- and maybe some of the pressure of needing to do this sooner rather than later.

Over the years, Stripe has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and its valuation has skyrocketed to $95 billion. Now, as it inches closer to an IPO, there are reports that it's trying to raise yet another big round of funding.