Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
Collective POS Launches Mobile Payment Solution for Apple, Blackberry and Android Smartphone Devices
Collective Point of Sale Solutions, a Canadian provider of payment processing services, has launched VirtualMerchant Mobile, a mobile P.O.S solution that allows small and medium-sized businesses to process credit card payments using an existing smartphone device.
“We worked very hard to deliver a payment solution that enables businesses to utilize their existing hardware, technical infrastructures and communications providers,” said Michael Back, CEO and President of Collective POS. “With this product, merchants can turn any iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android or Blackberry device into a secure, affordable point of sale terminal.”
To set up, merchants who have been approved for credit card processing download an application from the relevant app store and enter the account information provided to them by Collective POS.
VirtualMerchant Mobile includes both hardware and software features to ensure complete end-to-end transaction security. To protect merchants and cardholders, no payment information is stored on the mobile device. At the time of swipe, card data is encrypted through the provided card encryption sleeve and immediately sent to a firewall-protected, secure hosting environment.
“This solution is perfect for taxi and livery services, companies that offer delivery, participate in trade shows or flea markets, home-based businesses and any other business that wishes to accept credit cards on the go,” said Michael Back.
In addition to portability and information security, VirtualMerchant Mobile offers the reliability that is synonymous with all Collective POS offerings, making it an ideal solution for any on-the-go business or service.
Collective POS serves more than 10,000 businesses across Canada, including retail stores, restaurants, hospitality providers, mobile services, e-commerce merchants, mail order/telephone order businesses, professional firms/clinics/practitioners, B2B product/service providers, tradespeople and many other industries.
Source: Collective Point of Sale Solutions, Ltd.
NFC-enabled Point of Sale Ready to Explode, Says Report
Seeking to sell hardware and grow revenue, the major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)—VeriFone, Ingenico, and Hypercom—have developed and begun to implement business strategies that will drive near-field-communication (NFC) technologies into general availability in the United States, opening the door for a variety of new mobile marketing solutions enabled at the POS.
The current inflexibility of transaction-routing infrastructure ensures that existing authorization infrastructure will be unable to handle the new transaction types created by these marketing solutions. This will force the rapid evolution of a new set of hosted transaction-gateway and terminal-management solutions, with revenue opportunities for gateway providers approaching US$0.35 billion annually by 2015. Payments firms that miss the move will take a hit; merchant acquirers, independent sales organizations (ISOs), gateways, processors, and payment networks must develop a strategy that ensures delivery of flexible and centrally hosted POS environments.
A new report from Aite Group projects the deployment of mobile-capable hardware, software, and transaction-routing capabilities necessary to enable point-of-sale-integrated mobile marketing solutions and mobile payments in the United States. Based on more than 50 Aite Group interviews with industry stakeholders conducted from April through July 2011, the report also details the transformation of today’s point-of-sale (POS) infrastructure into tomorrow’s mobile environment.
“Current trends in the payments industry are driving a more complex point-of-sale infrastructure that will require POS services to be offered as hosted monthly services,” says Rick Oglesby, senior analyst with Aite Group and author of this report. “The POS terminal itself may soon become more similar to a cable TV box, opening a portal to a wealth of services to be accessed at the point of transaction. For payments companies, an opportunity exists to be the cable company itself, aggregating the various services in a gateway model and simplifying the way in which services can be accessed.”
Source: Aite Group
375 Million+ Mobile Payment Users by 2015, Says Report
Mobile payments are an emerging opportunity to make payment from or with a mobile handset. While a success in certain countries and with fringe audiences already, mobile payments have not yet achieved success on a global scale. However, it is anticipated that this will begin to change in 2011 as the number of mobile payment users starts a significant run up from 116 million to over 375 million in 2015, according to a recent research report from In-Stat.
“There appears to be consumer demand for mobile payments,” says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst. “Consumers do recognize pain points with current payment systems and indicate support for a cleaner, easier alternative. If mobile operators are able to push beyond the infrastructural challenges and introduce these services to the mass market, the transactional value of the mobile payments market is positioned to grow nearly tenfold over the next several years.”
Recent research findings identify the market’s preparedness including:
- Significant smartphone penetration.
- Consumer comfort level with purchasing goods with their phone through existing channels.
- A desire among mobile operators to develop opportunities to generate revenue from mobile based commerce.
- Infrastructural developments supporting contactless payments, including NFC-enabled mobile phones and Point of Sale (POS) terminals.
The In-Stat report, entitled “Mobile Payments: Is the Market Ready?” examines the mobile payment market structure, outlining the various elements in this multifaceted market. Discussion will include mobile payment types as well as the relationships comprised in this complex ecosystem.
The report also includes:
- Market player profiles including: Bling Nation, Boku, Clairmail, Isis, mFoundry, and Obopay
- Forecasts for the mobile payments market through 2015
- Forecasts of anticipated usage and transaction volume
- Detailed examination of the NFC market
- All forecasts extend through 2015 and are segmented by geographic regions
Source: MarketWire
VeriFone Acquires Point-of-Sales Terminal Company, WAY Systems
VeriFone Systems, Inc., a worldwide leader of secure payment services to businesses, today announced that it has bought WAY Systems, Inc, a company that manufactures mobile point-of-sales terminal and gateway solutions for merchant. According to VeriFone, the acquisition will not affect the company’s 2010 financials. The pricing detail of the transaction is an upfront payment of $6 million and then an additional $3 million within one year.
It took WAY Systems about 5 years in the payment processing business to build a customer base of more than 26,000 businesses that are utilizing their mobile terminals and gateway products. VeriFone will be taking control over customer support services for WAY System’s customers and will be adding them to their PAYware Connect Gateway platform. VeriFone will also offer WAY System’s 24/7 support to all customers currently using their mobile services.
WAY has developed many relationships with resellers and has intellectual property rights and several patents in Europe, U.S. and China that will help take VeriFone’s mobile platform to the next level. One of the substantial patents WAY has been granted has to do with how the mag-stripe reader connects to mobile phones and other mobile device.
Jeff Dumbrell, the executive vice president of VeriFone, was glad that they have added WAY Systems employees and customers as part of VeriFone.
Source: VeriFone
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