Tag: nfc mobile payments

The mobile payments provider has announced its intentions to include near field communication.

Cellum, a mobile wallet provider from Europe, has announced that NFC technology is on its way to its services. Currently, its mobile payments services are based on Host Card Emulation technology. However, NFC is becoming increasingly commonplace in this market and a company press release revealed they’re joining in.

The company has successfully applied near field communication technology to services in the past.

According to Zoltán Ács, the Cellum director of research and development, “Until recently, Cellum focused on remote payments, though the company is no stranger to NFC, as it has had a number of successful implementations based on the technology in the past.” That said, Ács pointed out that when they had previously used NFC technology, the market hadn’t been “ready for it.”

Cellum believes the market has since evolved and is ready to adopt NFC technology based solutions.

He explained that by implementing NFC based mobile wallets, it will help to better meet a rising demand for secure, rapid and easy to use payment solutions. Cellum has become an official MasterCard Digital Vendor Partner through the Hungarian support of the launch of MasterCard MasterPass.

Cellum provides banks and telcos with mobile wallet services that are MasterPass enabled. They also provider merchants with integration services that use its platform which is compliant with PCI DDS.

As MasterCard gets itself ready for its upcoming launch of contactless HCE based payments through its MasterPass, Cellum will offer its own partners the same functionality. Cellum COO, Ábel Garamhegyi, explained that the company has been using a white label model that included mobile wallet tech for several years. Garamhegyi went on to state that they have used it to established solid partnerships in Europe right through a good portion of the Asian market. He added that it gives the company pride to be “able to serve the diverse needs of our various clients and markets.”

The introduction of NFC technology will only expand on this capability as they broaden their reach as an official Digital Vendor Partner of MasterCard. This will bring together the one-touch PayPass experience with the online MasterPass convenience, all in a single branded app, said Garamhegyi.

According to a new survey from Square, customers who pay using NFC tech are more likely to tip.

NFC mobile payments are fast and are virtually instantaneous. This may be one of the reasons why consumer who use this type of payment tend to tip more compared to those who pay using traditional methods like magstripe cards. According to a study conducted in Portland by California-based mobile payment firm Square, 73% of customers who used near field communications (NFC) payments at point of sale (POS) left tips compared to only 67% of customers who used magnetic stripe cards.

Square spent six weeks in Portland educating local businesses about contactless payments.

For more than two months, Square remained in Portland for its #PayFasterPortland campaign. During the campaign, an increasing number of Portlanders began using their mobile devices to pay at local businesses that upgraded to Square’s new contactless and chip reader device.

Thousands of Portland sellers implemented Square’s new chip card and NFC mobile payments reader.

Square’s chip card and NFC reader is a small pocket-sized device with a powerful battery. It wirelessly connects to Android or iOS mobile devices and is made for NFC and chip, accepting EVM chip cards and Apple Pay as well as other contactless payments. The mini device is also designed to work with the free POS Square app

According to the official Square blog, Portland now has the highest “tap-to-pay” rates in the United States.

“Even before #PayFasterPortland, the city was number one in the country for orders for our new contactless and chip reader. And now the rate of people in Portland paying on Square’s new reader with mobile wallets like Apple Pay is higher than the national average,” the blog noted.

Square began rolling out its first contactless readers in November of last year. In March 2016, the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey revealed that the reader received over 350,000 pre-orders.

Due to the ease and speed of NFC mobile payments and with more businesses implementing the necessary devices that enable them to offer this payment option, this tech is likely to grow among both businesses and consumers across the country. It will be interesting to see if the high tipping percentage continues among NFC users.