Dive Brief: Mastercard on Monday announced a pilot of its Cloud Tap on Phone service where smartphones can be used as point-of-sale technology, according to a company press release. Mastercard is partnering with NMI and Global Payments, along with independent IT services provider Computer Engineering Group on the effort. Tap on Phone allows smartphones or tablets to accept contactless payments, thus "minimizing the need to invest in hardware terminals or extra features," per the release. Mastercard will make its pre-certified Cloud POS software development kits openly available in order to encourage solution providers, fintechs, processors and acquirers to co-create new cloud-first products.