Mobile commerce and the use of mobile devices as payment methods has been another area that’s lacking in the US compared to elsewhere. Mocapay, a leader in mobile-commerce solutions, is partnering with VeriFone Holdings, a provider of customer-facing payment systems, to introduce a new mobile payments and marketing technology that will be announced at the upcoming NRF Annual Convention this month in New York City.
Mocapay’s new platform provides merchants with the ability to “mobile-enable” their existing gift and loyalty programs through payment at the point-of-sale. Gift cardholders can transact at the point-of-sale, access their account balance and transaction history, find the nearest location, and reload their account, all from their mobile phone.
In addition, Mocapay gives retailers the tools to send targeted, one-to-one marketing messages to their customers while they’re using the platform. The problem is, being tied to a certain type of POS system means limited availability and thus limited amount of users to market to. In other words, the technology itself will need to prevail before successful mobile marketing can be executed using this method.
Mocapay’s mobile payment solution can be integrated with any point-of-sale system, however, the MX800 series from VeriFone is designed to enhance the customer experience at the point of sale. With more than 300,000 systems installed, its quickly become the de facto standard in consumer-facing payment systems, but will it become ubiquitous? One way or another, mobile payments will become standard in the near future, as long as the infrastructure and POS systems can support it.
