The world of card acceptance on BlackBerry smartphones has just become more complete.
Charge Anywhere LLC, a South Plainfield, N.J.-based wireless-payments company, has made its mobile-payments application compatible with a peripheral card-swiping device that plugs into a BlackBerry audio jack, the company announced Jan. 17.
Until now, the Charge Anywhere application worked with Blackberry devices only through a Bluetooth peripheral swiping device. It also works with other smartphones.
The new compatibility "makes it easier for consumers because the price point is appealing, it plugs right into the audio jack, and there's no charging and no battery," Kelly McDermott, Charge Anywhere marketing manager, tells PaymentsSource.
Charge Anywhere enables independent sales organizations to rebrand mobile payment-acceptance hardware and resell it to merchants, McDermott says.
Combining the audio-jack reader with Charge Anywhere's mobile application and payments gateway "provides BlackBerry device owners with the most cost-effective [method] to swipe cards anywhere, anytime," Paul Sabella, Charge Anywhere CEO, said in a press release.
"Businesses can take advantage of our [Payment Card Industry data security standards] security, [complete] encryption and device-management services while effortlessly turning their Sprint, AT&T or Verizon Wireless BlackBerry phone into a secure, mobile point-of-sale terminal," Sabella said in the release.
In December, comScore reported that BlackBerry maker RIM had 6.5 percent of the smartphone market.
