HitPay has launched Tap to Pay on iPhone in Malaysia, enabling merchants to accept contactless payments without additional hardware.
The launch follows HitPay's rollout of the same capability in Singapore in December 2025, marking a continued expansion of the feature across Southeast Asia. Merchants can get started within minutes through the HitPay iOS app on iPhone 11 or later, running the latest version of iOS. No additional point-of-sale hardware or payment terminal is required.
Addressing barriers to in-person acceptance
Malaysia's business landscape is heavily composed of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which account for more than 90% of businesses in the country. Traditional point-of-sale infrastructure typically carries upfront hardware costs and ongoing monthly rental fees, which can represent meaningful barriers to entry for smaller operators. Through the process of enabling payment acceptance through an existing iPhone, HitPay's implementation removes those costs entirely.
The solution operates via NFC technology. At the point of checkout, the merchant prompts the customer to hold a contactless payment method near the merchant's iPhone, after which the transaction is completed. Moreover, Apple's framework for the feature does not store card numbers or transaction information on the device or on Apple's servers, with the exception of encrypted card numbers temporarily held on the device for transactions processed in Store and Forward mode.
The capability also has implications for ecommerce merchants seeking to establish or expand an offline presence. Retailers operating pop-ups, market stalls, showrooms, or event-based activations can deploy mobile checkout without investing in dedicated hardware. In-store retailers can additionally use the solution to equip staff with mobile checkout options, with the potential to reduce queuing at fixed terminals.
Platform context and regional trajectory
According to the official press release, the Malaysia launch represents a logical progression from its Singapore deployment, extending the same NFC-based acceptance model to a neighbouring market with a comparable MSME-heavy commercial structure.
Aditya Haripurkar, CEO of HitPay, noted that the ability to accept in-person payments through an iPhone is intended to support merchants operating across digital and physical channels, including online brands making their first foray into physical retail activations, by lowering the barrier to mobile point-of-sale capability.
The integration of Tap to Pay on iPhone into the HitPay platform reflects a broader industry pattern in which software-based payment acceptance, sometimes referred to as SoftPOS, is progressively displacing hardware-dependent terminal models, particularly among smaller merchants and those requiring flexible or mobile checkout arrangements.
