Receive Contactless payments - phone app ?

AFIK they all need a card-reader linked to your phone. (SumUp, Zettle, Square etc.).

I may be wrong but I don't think there's a way to receive contactless payments direct to your phone.

Not seen one thats direct to your phone. Best I've used is a SumUP terminal. About £15-35 from toolstation and other places. Register yourself on their site with your bank details and sync terminal with your phone. Costs about 1.5% of the payments taken which is pretty reasonable but no other costs Away you go. Can then be reused as many times as you need whenever you need it on an ad-hoc basis. just charge it back up and away you go

I expect they’ll all need a card reader as it’s the only way the payment provider will be able to recognise the security requirements for payment processing services.

That Sumup on Toolstation is a good deal at £15, especially if you need something for the odd occasion.

That Sumup on Toolstation is a good deal at £15

it's a great deal, especially if you need it today & can go pick one up!!
I have a customer who (for whatever reason!) has a mix of Zettle, Square & SumUp. They all work fine, but the Zettle with built-in-4G is the only one that 100% works every time for him/his staff (purely down to user/technophobe issues) as it doesn't require a phone linked to it, you just switch it on & it works. Relatively expensive, though.

Apple has recently launched their SoftPOS solution (so you can use an iphone/ipad etc) as th reader, but you'll still need an account with a payment facilitator or acquirer.

As suggested, SumUp/Zettle are the most straightforward options, especially if you can get a reader for £15.

Apple has recently launched their SoftPOS solution (so you can use an iphone/ipad etc) as th reader

oh wow, that's extremely cool, need to look into that!! The main drawback of the cheaper bluetooth readers IME is it trips the technophobes up because you have to re-pair it with a different phone if someone else wants to use it. Doing away with the reader would be awesome.

We’re running a bar tonight at a meeting and would prefer it not to be cash only.

Even if you get the hardware, I doubt you'll be able to get accounts and authorisations set up by this evening.

Could you do something with PayPal?

Even if you get the hardware, I doubt you’ll be able to get accounts and authorisations set up by this evening

might be ok, especially if he starts registering the account/bank etc now? IIRC it was pretty quick when I set up with Zettle!

Apple has recently launched their SoftPOS solution

OK, brief excitement over 😃 They call it "Tap To Pay" and it's currently only available in the US. Sounds good though.

I may be wrong but I don’t think there’s a way to receive contactless payments direct to your phone.

Stripe have a means of tap to pay on the phone but it's a bit complicated and not cheap at 3% fee per transaction and getting an account up and running in time will be "challenging".