Elavon, an Atlanta, Ga., unit of U.S. Bancorp announced Wednesday a secure payment product that turns mobile devices, such as cell phones, into chip-card payment terminals.
Elavon said its MobileMerchant app can be downloaded to any smartphone, while an accompanying Bluetooth-connected chip-and-PIN point of sale device "securely captures and encrypts the card data."
The EMV chip-card standard is used in the U.K. and other countries to improve security over mag-stripe cards. Some U.S. issuers also offer the cards to travelers to use internationally.
"Our goal is to make payment acceptance easy for all businesses, regardless of type, size or acceptance environment," said Simon Haslam, Elavon's president of International Markets, in a press release.
