Pay-By-Cell Phone Around TheCorner

AUSTIN, Texas - (11/01/05) -- Mobile Evolution said it hascompleted a pilot in which 100 mobile merchants, including cabdrivers and trade-show vendors, accepted payment cards by keyingthe card numbers into cell phones, and is now unveiling thecard-processing service to merchants nationwide. The year-oldcompany said its technology will allow any cell phone with aviewing screen to become a secure payment terminal. The product isdesigned for smaller merchants that handle less than $50,000 perterminal per year. The company uses Innovative Merchant Services, aunit of Intuit, to sponsor transactions into the card networks, andGlobal Payments Inc. to provide cardholder authentication for thecell-phone initiated transactions. When customers are ready to pay,merchants launch software in the phone and enter a PIN to accessthe payment application. Once logged in, the merchant keys in thecard data, sale amount and the customer's billing ZIP code foraddress verification against the card account. A summary of thetransaction then appears on the phone screen. If the information iscorrect, the merchant transmits the transaction data to InnovativeMerchant Services for processing. The merchant captures thecardholder's signature on a separate paper document, and providesthe customer with a paper receipt for the transaction.