CorFire is working to show it is ready to make a name for itself in mobile payments.
The Atlanta-based mobile-commerce company unveiled its security and marketing products July 19, just weeks after securing access to thousands of potential merchants through a partnership with prepaid card provider InComm Inc. (
CorFire, a U.S. subsidiary of SK C&C of South Korea, introduced CorTrust for secure delivery of Citibank, N.A., MasterCard-branded credit cards or First Data Corp.-network supported prepaid cards to a mobile device; CorPay, a mobile-wallet application for mobile phones that reduces the need for a physical wallet; and Cor360, a mobile-marketing program for businesses to send gifts and offers to customers.
The announcement represents a signal that CorFire intends to be a long-term player in mobile commerce, one analyst contends.
“There is going to be some shakeout of (m-commerce) players as to who can really provide the service and perform,” says Todd Ablowitz, president of Double Diamond Group, an industry consulting firm based in Centennial, Colo. “But this is an enormous market, and these companies will fit into where they are used to performing in the ecosystem.”
As such, CorFire intends to rely heavily on its experience in Korea, where its parent, SK C&C, has more than 40,000 merchants using its products, Ablowitz tells Payments Source.
Jon Squire, CorFire’s senior vice president of business development and strategy, says the company will continue to seek “bigger partners” as part of its business model.
“Many folks have launched a mobile wallet, and I hope they are successful,” Squire says. “There is plenty of business out there for everyone.”
In a planned fourth-quarter push, CorFire will concentrate on rolling out the products with some key merchants while also developing merchant relationships stemming from its partnership with Atlanta-based InComm.
CorFire will sell its mobile-technology products bundled or individually, depending on what the client needs, Squire says.
CorTrust, the company’s trusted service manager product, integrates with a bank’s data-processing system and the merchant’s payment terminal to securely transfer credit card and debit card information into the mobile wallet, Squire says.
Consumers using the CorPay application would pay for goods and services through a smartphone, but the merchant would not have to change point-of-sale hardware or software, Squire says.
“Depending on the partnership, the transactions will leverage the ecosystem in place,” Squire says. “In the case of the Google Wallet, it will leverage Near Field Communication; in the case of InComm, we will leverage bridge technologies, such as barcode and NFC.”
In seeking to enable small businesses to support loyalty and rewards marketing programs tied to prepaid cards, the Cor360 mobile-marketing program can offer “a virtual loyalty, prepaid or social network marketing program, and the consumer would never have to go online,” Squire says.
Squire cites Starbucks’ recent mobile-pay success as an example of why merchants should be interested in similar marketing options that Cor360 can offer (
“Starbucks knew it had a ‘consumer on the go’ and developed its program, which is now leaps and bounds above competitors,” Squire says.
CorTrust already is in use through CorFire’s partnership with First Data, and the company plans to have CorPay and Cor360 in place during the fourth quarter.
Because CorFire has established InComm and First Data as partners, the company “will be sure to stay around for some time,” Double Diamond’s Ablowitz says.
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