Tag: mobile payments dongle

Mobile wallet investment into LoopPay by Visa

The credit card giant has now backed the smartphone payment solution that is accepted at most POS terminals.

It has now been announced that Visa is investing into LoopPay, which is a mobile wallet app that is designed to provide consumers and retailers with a mobile payment solution that is already accepted at a majority of point of sale terminals among retailers.

The LoopPay mobile app has been created to allow people to make mobile payments with smartphones.

This eliminates the need for those consumers to have to bring their plastic credit cards with them because they can use the mobile wallet within their device to pay with those cards in a digital manner, instead. The app uses a traditional setup for a smartphone based payments service, and provides the consumer with a small dongle that plugs into the device in order to allow users to be able to swipe their virtual cards when they reach the cash register to pay for their products at a retailer’s checkout counter.

In this way, the LoopPay mobile wallet doesn’t require any changes to be made to the retailer POS terminals.

Mobile Wallet - Visa InvestmentTo work with the LoopPay mobile payments software, retailers can simply continue to use the point of sale terminals that they already have. This helps to be able to span the gap that is currently present in the majority of smartphone based wallet services in the United States retail market.

Typically, in order for retailers to be able to receive mobile payments, they would have to change their terminals in order to accept some specific form of technology. At the same time, those that already accept certain types of smartphone friendly tech, such as NFC technology based readers, are compatible with only a small percentage of devices that are currently used by consumers.

As this service allows retailers to keep their systems and simply provides consumers with a dongle to use, this overcomes the compatibility challenges that have existed among many mobile wallet services until now. In this, Visa has already announced that it is upgrading its VisaCheckout program. Therefore, their investment into LoopPay will give the company the opportunity to make an even larger impact on the smartphone payments sector.

Mobile payments may be the ideal solution for cabbies

Mobile Payments Taxi CabsTaxi drivers are discovering that smartphones may be the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.

Though digital wallets may be struggling and mobile payments in stores might not be taking off at the rate that was anticipated, taxi drivers are seeing the true potential in the technology for adding practical convenience and a new way to pay for the ride.

Cabbies are seeing the benefits in this technology both for themselves and their customers.

It is still rare for taxi drivers to be able to process transactions with credit cards, which means that many of them find themselves missing opportunities to make money every day. They find themselves having to send customers away when they cannot accept their preferred method of paying for the fare. Many complain of animosity from the lost customers, due to the limited options.

However, with mobile payments, this could entirely reverse the problem in a practical way.

There have been two major developments in providing mobile payments options to taxi cab passengers. The first is through an actual physical device that can connect to the driver’s smartphone or tablet. The second is through mobile apps to which both the driver and the passenger have subscribed.

In the first case, a device – often known as a dongle – is attached to the smartphone or table of the taxi driver. This allows mobile payments to be accepted by using the device to swipe credit cards. This is a highly convenient service that is offered by a number of different providers to small businesses and services such as cabs.

The idea has become so popular that there are some cab companies that will be distributing the dongles to all of their drivers so that they will have mobile payments available throughout. The advantage is that the service is quick and easy to use and doesn’t require the passenger to have a either a smartphone or an app installed on their own device to make it work.

However, some people are uncomfortable with making mobile payments on the devices of someone they don’t know. In those circumstances, apps are often available that allow them to not only book the car, but also make the payment for the ride through their own device, using a credit card.

In both cases the mobile payments typically come with a per transaction fee that will usually be in the range of 2 to 3 percent.