MobilePayUSA, a winner at last week’s TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco conference, has an LBS mobile payment solution that removes the cost barrier for businesses to adopt the technology–another way to move mobile payments toward mainstream usage.
Released by Universal Commerce Inc., MobilePayUSA works by using geo-location technology. At a shop, the consumer finds the merchant on his/her phone and taps the PAY STORE button. Once the store is confirmed onscreen, the consumer enters a PIN number and the payment amount due, and hits the PAY NOW button. Payments are connected to the consumer’s credit or debit cards.
The beauty of the solution, claim MobilePayUSA’s proprietors, is that it costs nothing for businesses to set up–unlike NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, for which merchants must buy special check-out registers at a cost of up to $500 per terminal. It’s also potentially cost-free for consumers, since it “requires no new hardware, no new software, no bar codes, no Bluetooth or NFC technology to enable your mobile phone to make payments,” the company said in a release.
Still, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. On MobilePayUSA’s site I found this under the information for merchants: “Credit or Debit Processing Fees + 1% + 25 cents.” It’s not clear how much “processing fees” are in addition to that 1% cut and 25-cent charge. Meanwhile, consumers may have to pay in terms of business’ costs being passed on to them.
But the removal of initial start-up costs will make MobilePayUSA enticing to many merchants. Consumers, too, may feel safer since their credit or debit information, like PayPal, would never be shared with shops or stored in businesses’ systems–a new big concern for advocacy groups. With mobile versions of direct deposit and money wire transfers, not to mention the various ways to incorporate NFC, MobilePayUSA is still a standout solution.
