The combination of Square Inc.’s popularity and forthcoming reduced debit card interchange fees is helping HomeATM ePayment Solutions to finally gain traction in the marketplace, according to the company’s president and CEO.
Mitchell Cobrin took over at the Montreal-based company at about the same time Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey was introducing Square to the masses. And HomeATM was just starting to reinvent its business model.
“We look at Square as healthy market awareness” of mobile card acceptance, Cobrin tells PaymentsSource. “They created attention to a market that’s emerging.”
HomeATM has no plans to abandon enabling PIN-debit transactions at home with its PCI-certified personal card-swipe device and PIN pad, dubbed the Rover. The company is also promoting an “anywhere commerce” model suitable for merchants with “line-busting,” or nontraditional checkout systems and also for mobile merchants such as repairmen and taxi drivers who would use the device with a mobile phone, laptop and even Apple Inc.’s iPad to conduct transactions.
Line-busting refers to a checkout method in which merchant staff members use a handheld, wireless device to process transactions instead requiring the customer to wait in line at checkout. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. uses such a system during peak hours at its popular restaurant locations.
CardinalCommerce Corp., a Mentor, Ohio-based payment-security company, Feb. 15 signed a partnership with HomeATM to include the Rover as part of its Centinel service. The service enables merchants to accept payment-authentication programs and alternative-payment brands independent of online payment gateways, shopping-cart software and processors.
Merchants that decide to accept Internet PIN-debit transactions via the Rover would distribute the device free to consumers, CardinalCommerce CEO Michael Keresman says, describing one possible distribution model.
HomeATM also is approaching merchants directly, Cobrin says. An unnamed national retailer plans to deploy the Rover next month for merchants with line-busting environments.
“That retailer was pretty innovative in its ideas with line-busting, PIN-debit, tablets and PCs and mobile phones,” Cobrin adds.
Paul Turgeon, president of Payments & Processing Consultants Inc., believes HomeATM’s device is well suited for line-busting situations and for mobile merchants in general. “There are lots of those kind of merchants who are spending a lot of money equipping themselves to take credit cards,” he told PaymentsSource last year.
Cobrin believes the Federal Reserve Board’s proposed debit interchange rates will help make the Rover more attractive to merchants.
The Durbin amendment “makes it a very interesting opportunity for retailers to take a clear and honest look at their PIN-debit strategy for the web,” Cobrin says. “I think a solution that could provide superior rates because of its superior security is really going to be grabbing attention right now.”
Mobile merchants would get significant savings using the Rover instead of other mobile acceptance devices such as Square, Cobrin says. For example, a plumber who provides services for between $200 and $300 during each visit would potentially pay 12 cents on that transaction compared with higher credit card rates.
“That’s a significant return on investment” for Rover users, Cobrin says.
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