France-based payment company Ingenico Group announced a partnership with authentication solutions provider Mypinpad to pilot PIN on Mobile (PoM) services for SMEs in Europe.

In a statement, Ingenico described PoM as the “latest innovation” in payment acceptance for in-store transactions and said the system had been developed and expanded beyond the current mobile point of sale (mPOS) market to meet demand for increased card acceptance points across the world.

The live pilots will see Mypinpad’s PoM product, MPES, integrated within Ingenico’s payment systems to deliver PIN-authenticated transactions on consumer devices including smartphones and tablets.

MPES operates as a software-based PIN pad, which the company said securely captures PIN entries on the device. This removes the need for a hardware-based PIN pad and allows payment service providers and acquirers to “offer low cost solutions to micro-merchants in order to grow the number of global retail acceptance points”.

PIN numbers entered into a smartphone or tablet are isolated and protected.

Ingenico said the solution is “already compliant to card scheme rules” and the first pilot is due to go live in Europe by mid-2018.