Tag: mobile payments news

Mobile payments moves forward with app through Barclays

| June 25, 2013

Retailers will be able to accept these transactions through the new Buyit application.

Barclays’ has taken a new step forward to prove itself as a banking industry innovator by unveiling a new offering to customers in the United Kingdom that allow them to use mobile payments.

These transactions will be based on the use of QR codes printed on various forms of advertisements.

In order to use the mobile payments, the Buyit app is required. It allows customers to scan QR codes on ads in order to make purchases. It is drawn from the popularity of Barclay’s previously launched app Pingit. That app was released earlier this year. The new application, however, helps to extend smartphone transactions beyond the Pingit person to person support so that retailers can also take part.

Barclays’ has high hopes that this mobile payments offering will have a similar impact on its stocks to the last one.

Retail Mobile PaymentsAccording to one recent report, the company has been maintaining a price estimate of $22 for the stock, and that is currently riding around 20 percent above the market price where it currently stands. U.K. regulators have raised concerns about the banking industry’s capital shortfalls in light of the impact that the European region’s slowdown among banking institutions. That could help to explain the price difference that has been observed.

Barclays is hoping to keep itself at the head of the game by remaining a technology leader. Mobile payments offerings is a central part of that effort. It has previously achieved this type of solid success through the use of ATMs, which are now ubiquitous. The organization has also been leading the way in other contactless transaction solutions.

It was Barclays that launched the very first mobile payments solution in the country. The Pingit app allows customers to send money to one another using only the cell number of the recipient and without the need for the sender to know any of the recipient’s account details. The service is available for free for everyone in the United Kingdom, provided that they have a bank account and a smartphone with which to make the funds exchange.

Mobile payments iPad app accidentally released by Groupon

| May 16, 2013

Groupon - Mobile Payments App AccidentThe application had been available in the Apple App Store for a few hours but was then removed.

Groupon made dozens of mobile payments headlines, this week, when an app was released for the iPad at the App Store and that looked as though the company would be taking on Square in direct competition, but it the application was soon removed from the website altogether.

This has lead many in the industry to believe that the app was released prematurely.

The iPad mobile payments app had been called the Groupon POS. This looked as though Groupon was declaring itself ready to jump into the tablet transaction arena. The apparent launch of the app spawned a great deal of confusion, as there had not been any form of official announcement to accompany the release.

Though the mobile payments app was clearly live at the store though the company had been silent.

This didn’t stop the Groupon mobile payments app from being noticed, downloaded, and reviewed by a solid handful of people, who have already formed opinions about it, even though it has been removed from the App Store. So far, the consensus on the app that may not be its completed version, was that it is a simple and attractive way to manage business transactions and accept payments at rates that are lower than the competition.

Users found that it was extremely simple and fast for a company to be able to set up its offerings, and that the checkout process should be possible within a matter of seconds. Real-time analytics can be instantly viewed, to allow companies to keep a close eye on how things are doing from one moment to the next.

The Groupon POS mobile payments application can also work with an optional printer and cash drawer, for businesses that are looking for greater simplification and automation of their point of sale. Reviewers have been able to identify a wide variety of different uses for the app and the service, for a broad range of different types of merchants, from cafes to hair salons, and from florists to delis.