Mobile Payment Magazine

HID Gobal Announces New Contactless Payment Stickers

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HID Gobal announced today, the addition of a mobile sticker format to its family of contactless payment and identification cards.

HID Global provides solutions for the delivery of secure identity. The new stickers make it easier to add closed-loop payment and loyalty systems to existing automatic fare collection or retail systems, or to augment campus identification systems with new access control capabilities. They also can be affixed to mobile phones as a bridge to coming NFC mobile payment services.

“We continue to offer more ways to deliver secure access and conduct cashless transactions, whether with traditional cards or easy-to-use contactless stickers, and each of our credential form factors plays an important role as consumers seek more reliable and convenient secure identity solutions.”

Unlike other stickers, HID’s sturdy, adhesive-backed stickers include an internal ferrite layer that shields electronics from interference even when attached to items containing metal, such as mobile phones.

They come in a breakout ID-1 card format and can be printed with customer information including serial numbers, activation codes, messages, brand elements and/or promotional text and artwork.

HID Global offers print customization in low quantities, providing companies with an economical way to extend their brand presence. To meet existing customer environments, HID’s contactless payment and identification stickers are available with DESFire, MIFARE and iCLASS technologies.

“Contactless payment stickers enable users to experience the convenience and reliability of next-generation NFC-enabled mobile payment, now, by simply attaching them to mobile phones, MP3 players or other frequently carried items,” said David Nichols, Product Marketing Director, Credentials, with HID Global. “We continue to offer more ways to deliver secure access and conduct cashless transactions, whether with traditional cards or easy-to-use contactless stickers, and each of our credential form factors plays an important role as consumers seek more reliable and convenient secure identity solutions.”

HID Global’s contactless payment and identification stickers are available in both volume and sample quantities. HID’s sticker customization program allows customers to choose from a variety of printing, laser engraving, programming, artwork and contactless chip technology options, upon request. In the field, stickers may be printed with brand elements, custom designs or other information using desktop card printers such as the Fargo line of financial card printers with patented High Definition Printing (HDP™) technology. The single-use part can be discarded by the end-user after receipt.

Source: Business Wire

ROAM Data Launches New Credit Card Reader for Blackberry Devices

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ROAM Data has launched its audio coupled card reader for BlackBerry devices, which hold  approximately 30% of the smart phone market in the US.

ROAM enables the millions of merchants with BlackBerry devices to securely swipe customers’ payment cards with ROAMpay Swipe by plugging-in ROAM’s  reader into the audio jack.

“Our goal is to bring the most convenient and secure ways for merchants to transact with their customers on virtually any computing devices,” says Will Graylin, Founder and CEO of ROAM Data. “Our team of mobile and payment experts has consistently overcome major challenges to simplify complex problems for the market, making a secure audio reader work with BlackBerry is the latest achievement we are proud of.”

Supported Models Carriers Include:
Curve 2 8520 AT&T
Bold 9000 AT&T
Bold 2 9700 AT&T
Torch 9800 AT&T
Curve 2 8530 Sprint
Tour 9630 Sprint
Bold 9650 Sprint
Curve 2 8520 T-Mobile
Bold 2 9700 T-Mobile
Curve 2 8530 Verizon
Storm 2 9550 Verizon
Tour 9630 Verizon
Bold 9650 Verizon

ROAM Data won the 2010 Electronic Transactions Association’s Technology Innovation Award earlier this year for its device agnostic mCommerce platform, and continues to be a clear frontrunner in bringing secure, affordable and convenient transactions to mobile merchants and consumers. ROAM has created a patented mCommerce Application Platform called ROAM Rails that enable mobile apps to be written once and run on virtually any device – from smart phones, feature phones, tablets, PCs, MACs, and even traditional POS devices. ROAM Rails solves the fundamental device complexity and fragmentation problem that has plagued the mobile app industry and is setting the standard for scalable mCommerce application delivery.

One such scalable mCommerce app that runs on ROAM Rails is ROAMpay, a mobile merchants payment card acceptance app with unprecedented device coverage, transaction cost savings and security. ROAMpay Swipe is the universal reader peripheral that plugs into the 3.5mm audio jack of most mobile devices and has built-in encryption, avoiding the serious security risks of skimming associated with similar looking competitive swipers that have no encryption. ROAM supports more devices for its apps and peripherals than any other provider in the industry, enabling support for many more end-users. Even before offering support for nearly 80% of the BlackBerry devices currently being sold in the market, ROAMpay Swipe had the most extensive device coverage of any reader on the market – including Apple products (iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4; iPad, iPod Touch), a wide variety of Android powered devices, PCs, Macs and netbooks.

“ROAM’s continued commitment to bringing mobile payments, both keyed-entry and now card-present, to a growing segment of merchants, who traditionally have been underserved, shows how in-tune they are with the market and the trends in mobile payments,” commented Chris Justice, president of Ingenico North America, “I’m really excited to see ROAM Data take the leadership position in setting a new industry standard for mobile payments that will bring tremendous benefits to all levels of merchants, across all industries. ROAM Data is Ingenico’s strategic business partner in the States for m-commerce and mobile payment solutions.”

ROAM has proven its Rails with its own apps, and has now started to enable others to build their apps with ROAM’s platform and peripherals.

Source: PR Newswire

Marketing and Selling to the New Mobile Customer

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Sales of smartphones have reached the tipping point, with more and more consumers doing their shopping not only online, but mobile as well. With the iPhone  and a whole new crop of smartphones on Google’s Android operating system, we’re likely to look back and see the 2010 holiday shopping season as the tipping point for mobile payments and mobile commerce.

If you have a business, here’s an overview of the tools you can use to go mobile with your business:

  • Reinvent your website for the mobile platform
  • Do local search engine optimization
  • Consider doing an SMS marketing campaign
  • Create an app
  • Use video advertising
  • Use social media marketing
  • Begin offering mobile payment solutions
  • Offer deals with mobile coupons
  • Get on board with Quick Response codes
  • Ask your customers to review your business

Read the details here:

Source: Tools for Taking your Online Business Mobile

KreditFly Launches Mobile Payment Solution Available to 300 Million U.S. Mobile Phone Customers

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A new player in mobile has launched its mobile payment service today. KreditFly, a flexible mobile payment solutions is available to all 300 million mobile subscribers in the United States, allowing users to immediately use their mobile phones to complete online transactions, and choose the method of payment. On the merchant side, online merchants can take mobile-authenticated payments from their customers at percentage fees in the teens, as opposed to 50% for Premium SMS-based mobile payments.

With KreditFly’s relatively low fees and accessibility to all mobile users, the company expects a dramatic increase in conversion of non-paying users to paying users on the KreditFly site.

Paul Kim, Founder and CEO of KreditFly said, “KreditFly is pioneering a way for our merchant partners to pay significantly lower processing fees, while enjoying the benefit of 300 million potential customers in the US who can become paying users. Until now, the only way to convert users quickly via mobile phone without user pre-registration was to place the charge onto the mobile carrier bill, but the high fees charged to merchants and reliability issues with Premium SMS have prevented truly widespread adoption of mobile payments in the US. KreditFly has now introduced a service that maintains all of the benefits of mobile-authenticated payments, including the speed, security, ubiquity, and high conversion rates, without the excessive fees.”

<strong>How KreditFly Works</strong>

Micro-credit  process, a consumer who does not have a KreditFly account can still complete a transaction and receive his good without having to sign up with KreditFly beforehand. The buyer simply selects KreditFly during checkout, enters his mobile number into the payment page, receives a 4-digit code on his mobile phone, then enters the code back into the online payment page along with his email address. That’s it – the transaction takes only seconds, and the user gets the good from the merchant immediately. Then, within 7 days after the transaction, the user must register with KreditFly and complete payment through any of the payment options that KreditFly offers. KreditFly has developed strong, proprietary methodologies to follow up with users to ensure payment completion.

When users register with KreditFly, those who own credit cards or bank accounts can securely connect their account to these payment options. Those who do not have such options can instead choose to load up their KreditFly account with funds and use it like a debit account by purchasing various prepaid cards that are available at nationwide retail stores (e.g. Walmart, Kroger, Target, 7-Eleven, Walgreens, etc.), or by mailing in cash or money orders directly to KreditFly. Users will soon have other innovative choices, like KreditFly’s PayForMeTM option, which allows users to request one-time payment or recurring allowance from their parents or friends. KreditFly plans to continue adding new and innovative payment methods for its users over time. Regardless of the funding method, each transaction by a registered user is secured with two-factor authentication and takes just seconds to complete by entering a 4-digit code received on the mobile phone and a password established during registration.

Vu Hoang, Co-founder and CFO of Aeria Games (www.aeriagames.com), a partner of KreditFly and leading online game publisher with over 15 million members, asserted that “with KreditFly’s low fees and accessibility to all mobile users, we expect a dramatic increase in conversion of non-paying users to paying users on our site. KreditFly cleverly uses the mobile phone to extend credit to our trusted community, while creating strong accountability and follow-up for payments.”

KreditFly also brings a social aspect into play, rewarding users generously for activities like paying with KreditFly and inviting friends. Users earn KreditFly Points, which can be used like cash at partner sites to get free things like in-game items, virtual currency, music, etc.

KreditFly is launching its beta service with a select group of companies and games, including Aeria Games (www.aeriagames.com), Age of Champions (http://apps.facebook.com/ageofchampions by KlickNation), and Destiny Stone (http://apps.facebook.com/destinystone by Manic Frog). The company is growing its merchant partnership quickly and will announce additional partners shortly.

Source: Business Wire

Intuit GoPayment Mobile Credit Card Processing

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Intuit’s GoPayment mobile credit card processing solution has been around for a while, but only recently has the system included the ability to swipe a credit card and transmit that swiped data directly via mobile phone.

Since partnering with Mophie, a complete solutions is now available. The Mophie hardware, called mophie marketplace, is concealed inside of a low-profile, soft-touch case. It allows processing of any major credit card by entering card information directly into your iPhone.

The advantage for mobile merchants, such as Farmer’s Market vendors, food cart vendors, mobile service providers (plumbers, window repair, etc) is that the system is quick and easy to set up. The hardware can be purchased from Apple ($179.95), and there’s a free application at iTunes.

Intuit’s GoPayment Pricing:

Monthly Service …………$12.95
Swipe Rate ……………….1.7%3
Keyed Rate ……………….2.7%4
Transaction Fee …………30¢4
Set-up Fees ………………NONE
Cancellation Fee ……….NONE
Monthly Minimum ………NONE

More information:

Go Payment Video:

Verifone’s Credit Card Swipe System for iPhone to be Marketed by Elavon

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Elavon, a wholly-owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, will market and support VeriFone Systems, Inc.’s PAYware Mobile secure card payment system for the Apple iPhone.

The solution transforms the iPhone into a mobile payment device with a card encryption sleeve that allows merchants to capture data via card swipe, a more secure, cost effective method than manually entering data.

PAYware Mobile will be marketed through Elavon’s established sales channels including bank relationships, telesales, third-party providers and associations. It extends the flexibility of accepting card payments wherever and whenever a merchant requires, and offers real-time reporting including extensive transaction search capabilities. The PAYware Mobile app is PCI compliant, and the card encryption sleeve is compatible with the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

“VeriFone’s PAYware Mobile is a simple, secure and convenient solution ideal for our small business customers,” said Mike Passilla, president and CEO of Elavon. “Technology is rapidly changing the payments landscape, and mobile applications are leading the evolution. The ability to deliver secure, innovative solutions is a cornerstone for driving customer satisfaction and generating new business among merchants that have yet to adopt payment technology.”

“Elavon’s agreement to support PAYware Mobile reflects growing industry excitement over the leading card payment solution for iPhone,” said Paul Rasori, VeriFone senior vice president of marketing. “Elavon’s sales force will significantly expand the marketing reach for this innovative system.”

PAYware Mobile incorporates a stylus for signature capture and a mini-USB port for charging the iPhone while the ergonomic card encryption sleeve is attached. PAYware Mobile incorporates VeriFone’s VeriShield Protect end-to-end encryption technology for secure card payments.

Phone-Based Authentication Sees Strong Adoption in 2010

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Usage of PhoneFactor’s products offer a good insight into adoption of phone-based authentication. The company offers phone-based two-factor authentication solutions to companies worldwide–users simply respond to a phone call or SMS text message from PhoneFactor to authenticate.

The company has more than doubled its user base in the first three quarters of this year with key sales in Banking, Government, Healthcare, and Enterprise. This, combined with the recent announcement by Google that it will be adding support for phone-based authentication to its Google Apps platform, validates a shift in the authentication market which has been expected for some time.

“I think it is great news for the market as it shows that a major player with massive influence is adopting the technology,” said Alan Goode of Goode Intelligence. Goode’s firm published a report on “The Mobile Phone as an Authentication Device – Analysis and Forecasts 2010 – 2014” which forecast significant growth in the phone-based authentication market.

“Our research shows that the introduction of mobile phone-based two-factor authentication will not only result in phone-based two-factor solutions taking market share from the previously dominant hardware token solutions, but also that new markets will be opened up as a direct result,” said Goode. “Strong authentication is no longer the preserve of an enterprise or corporate banking user; everyone who owns a mobile phone can now benefit from strong, agile authentication that is cost-effective and quick to deploy.”

“A new paradigm for user authentication, which reflects evolving standards for security and scalability, is driving adoption of phone-based authentication to unprecedented levels,” said Steve Dispensa, PhoneFactor CTO and co-founder. Single factor authentication based on user names and passwords has proven ineffective against today’s threats, yet multi-factor systems based on security tokens and smart cards have failed to become ubiquitous. The resulting gap is being filled by phone-based authentication methods.

“We’ve been seeing this shift on the banking and enterprise side over the last 12-18 months,” said Dispensa. “The demands of an increasingly mobile workforce, shift toward cloud computing models, and evolving threat landscape are forcing organizations to rethink their current authentication practices.”

Phone-based authentication can be quickly and cost-effectively enabled for large numbers of geographically diverse users, with out-of-band solutions offering protection against malware, such as keystroke loggers, and MITM/MITB attacks which have become prevalent in particularly high risk industries like banking.

Source: PhoneFactor

VeriFone Announces PAYware Mobile Enterprise Solution

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VeriFone Systems, Inc. has announced a new mobile card acceptance solution called PAYware Mobile Enterprise.

The secure solution integrates with existing in-store POS systems. In addition to enabling new in-store mobile applications, it is supported by VeriFone’s PAYware Connect gateway for remote payment acceptance outside of store environments.

PAYware Mobile Enterprise incorporates a PCI-approved PIN debit keypad, which allows merchants to leverage dramatically lower transaction costs, and a 2D bar code scanner for  performing mobile check out or inventory control tasks.

In addition, PAYware Mobile Enterprise features built-in NFC and EMV smartcard capabilities, ensuring North American retailers are ready to embrace NFC-enabled mobile phones and  rollout of EMV smartcards.

“With PAYware Mobile Enterprise, retailers can revolutionize customer service and store operations by utilizing versatile mobile applications and secure payment acceptance integrated with existing POS infrastructure,” said Erik Vlugt, VeriFone vice president of product marketing. “VeriFone’s card encryption and tokenization solution for smart devices isolates payment actions to ensure retailers can maintain a secure payment environment.”

PAYware Mobile Enterprise is the first commercially viable solution to integrate mobile payment devices into a PCI-compliant environment and drastically reduce PCI scope and the merchant’s overall risk profile.

Smartphones and WiFi-equipped PDAs, while rich application platforms, were not designed for use as payment acceptance devices and thus generally do not adhere to payment industry security requirements. To keep these otherwise vulnerable mobile devices out of PCI scope, PAYware Mobile Enterprise incorporates VeriFone’s VeriShield Total Protect, which provides encryption and tokenization in one all-encompassing solution framework to protect data in-flight and at-rest and to isolate payment activities from device applications and storage.

With PAYware Mobile Enterprise, retailers can equip store personnel with smart mobile devices that feature rich graphical displays and compact form-factors for roaming checkout operations, so that items can be scanned, payment cards accepted and receipts emailed to customers or transmitted to a nearby wireless printer with ease.

VeriFone will provide customized applications, and critical management, decryption/tokenization and gateway services to enable new mobile applications such as in-store queue-busting, inventory management and out-of-store delivery and service calls. VeriFone provides managed services options including initial application load, key injection, updates, maintenance, licenses and warranty for a monthly fee.

The initial release of PAYware Mobile Enterprise is scheduled for early 2011 and VeriFone is previewing the solution at the National Retail Federation show in New York this week.

Source: Verifone