Tag: canadian mobile payments

Moneris launches new mobile payments service

Moneris Solutions, a Canadian payment processor, has launched a new mobile payments service called “Payd Pro.” The new service is designed to be used alongside debit cards, allowing the financial information associated with these cards to be used by a mobile device. The mobile payments service is meant to make commerce more convenient for consumers that are constantly on the go and could be ideal for commuters that have little time to shop at physical stores.

Payd Pro utilizes Bluetooth technology

Unlike other mobile payments services, Payd Pro is not based on NFC technology. This is because NFC-enabled mobile devices are still quite rare among consumers and NFC has begun to attract a significant amount of criticism regarding its security. Instead, Payd Pro utilizes Bluetooth technology in order to make it more accessible to both iOS and Android devices. The Payd Pro application offers a variety of mobile commerce management tools that have been developed by Moneris. These tools have been quite well received by small businesses in Canada that have used them in the past.

Service encrypts card data at transaction

Payd Pro encrypts the card data that it uses at the time of transaction. This is meant to provide security for the financial information that is being used to conduct mobile payments. Security has become a major issue when it comes to the world of mobile commerce due to the malicious parties that have been attracted to this rapidly growing sector. Hackers have shown interest in mobile commerce because of the relatively low-level security systems that many platforms are equipped with.

Consumers and businesses showing increasing interest in mobile payments

Canadian consumers have been growing more interested in mobile payments in recent years, largely due to the growing levels of smartphone and tablet ownership. As more people are exposed to the concept of mobile commerce, the more they are demanding mobile payments services that are both secure and easy to use. Moneris has been able to meet this demand to some degree with its variety of mobile commerce services offered to consumers and businesses alike.

Canadians still prefer cash, but they are slowly starting to pick up their smartphones to make purchases.

According to the latest report from Technology Strategies International, a research firm, there is a very slow but upward growth of contactless mobile payments in Canada, to the degree that it will one day replace the current leader, cash.

The most recent report said that over half of Canadian smartphone owners had used their device for a transaction.

The report was called Canadian Payments Forecast – 2013 and it stated that over half of the smartphone owners in Canada had made a purchase at some point in which they used mobile payments to complete the transaction. Most of those were in the form of remote transactions, such as paying a bill through their bank’s smartphone app, or purchasing a product over the internet.

The use of mobile payments while in stores remains quite low despite the fact that remote transactions are common.

According to the Technology Strategies International president, Christie Christelis, “The incidence of in-store payments using mobile phones is very low.” Christelis went on to explain that “But with the increasing penetration of contactless payment acceptance terminals, coupled with the proliferation of NFC (near field communications)-enabled phones, we expect that by 2017 there will be almost 3 million regular mobile payment users in Canada.”

The report indicated that the primary mobile payments growth drivers within the marketplace in Canada include higher personal spending on products and services, as well as deeper electronic payments penetration of digital transactions into areas in which checks and cash had previously dominated.

Christelis explained that over the last two years, there has been a 20 percent increase in awareness of contactless mobile payments options that are available to consumers, adding that the familiarity with contactless cards as a transaction option is growing among Canadians, and those are being used more often. In that way, contactless transactions have already been making steps toward displacing the use of cash. It is expected by the report that this will become much more significant through the use of smartphones as well as cards, for the next five years.