A San Francisco-based startup called Card.io is offering software that enables cell-phone cameras to scan credit card information, thus moving ecommerce from the Web to mobile phones and creating a new product for ISOs to sell to merchants.
“ISOs working with mobile merchants could be a great channel for us,” Mike Mettler, Card.io CEO, said in an email response to ISO&Agent questions.
The product eliminates the need for card-swiping hardware and does away with the requirement of typing card information onto a phone keyboard, the company said in a June 23 press release.
Card.io is offering the software to mobile developers, who could integrate it into their programming, the release said.
“There is a huge opportunity to grab developer mind share,” the release said.
The company is charging 15 cents per scan with no contracts or monthly fees, according to the company website.
The company also announced June 23 that it has raised $1 million in funding from private investors for the project.
“We’re betting that, over the long term, software will win out over hardware-dependent payment” services, Mettler said in the release.
However, Gil B. Luria, an analyst at Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities Inc., told PaymentsSource in a phone interview that he sees the product as a short-term bridge technology, useful only until Near Field Communication takes hold in mobile payments.
But Mettler maintains that the two technologies could coexist.
“We’re actually a pretty different use case: NFC is useful if you’re at a physical retailer and want to just tap your phone to purchase,” Mettler said in the email response. “We're useful if you’re using a mobile app and want to buy something but don’t want to type in all your card info on a tiny keyboard.”
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