Charge Anywhere LLC will have gateway software available when small U.S. merchants need to accept EMV-chip card payments with their smartphones.
Until more U.S. processors are supporting the EMV chip-based smartcard technology in the next year or two, Charge Anywhere will concentrate on global distribution of software that links smartphones with Bluetooth-enabled chip-and-PIN mobile card readers, says Jim Dugan, chief financial officer with Charge Anywhere.
"We are providing the software in those countries already using EMV or in stages of EMV chip migration," Dugan says.
The South Plainfield, N.J.-based mobile point of sale developer announced the new software at a recent Blackberry Live Conference.
Charge Anywhere highlighted the software's capability to link BlackBerry 10 or BlackBerry legacy devices to the chip-and-PIN readers at the conference, and the company is developing the software to work on Apple and Android devices as well, Dugan says.
Charge Anywhere doesn't manufacture a chip-and-PIN mobile card reader, but has talked with various companies in the United Kingdom, including Miura Systems and Powa Technologies Ltd., as to which reader Charge Anywhere would provide or recommend to clients, Dugan adds.
Powa Technologies' mPowa touted a chip-and-PIN mobile card reader it planned to roll out in the U.S., but company CEO Dan Wagner indicated this year that mPowa would
Charge Anywhere provides a turn-key, white-label mobile payment and payment gateway technology platform for processors, banks or telecommunications companies. It has targeted countries in which mobile technology is prevalent, but financial services are still developing.
