Hypercom Corp. plans to use its new point-of-sale products for use with Apple Inc.’s iPhone not only to reach mobile merchants but also to target brick-and-mortar retailers that want to expedite client purchases and avoid long lines at sales registers, Stuart Taylor, Hypercom vice president of global solutions and marketing, told ISO&Agent Weekly last week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.
The SmartPayments Mobile devices feature card swipes and attach to iPhones. Hypercom introduced the product line April 13.
The “sole proprietor business” that traditionally found accepting payment cards cost prohibitive can benefit from lower-cost, smartphone-enabled payment devices, and “then there is higher-end retail and customer service” where opportunities exist for “line busting,” Taylor said.
Line busting typically involves retail employees with handheld wireless devices scanning bar codes on merchandise and accepting card payments. With line busting, customers do not have to visit the traditional checkout area and can avoid waiting in line to pay for their merchandise.
Hypercom intends to begin shipping the two SmartPayments Mobile devices in June.
Both SmartPayments Mobile products include a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard-certified and encrypted card reader. One device, SmartPayments MobilePlus, includes a barcode scanner merchants may use to scan inventory and other forms of barcode information. The other, SmartPayments MobilePro, includes the card reader but not a barcode scanner.
“The barcode scanner is a big advantage” for merchants, said Taylor.
Both models include payment-data encryption, a built-in rechargeable battery, e-mail receipt capabilities and an opening in the product case for the iPhone camera lens. Both also encrypt all magnetic stripe card information immediately at card swipe.
Hypercom is selling the devices through its bank acquirer and ISO partners and directly to merchants, and it will direct merchants without existing merchant accounts to different payment processors, according to the company.
Hypercom will route transactions from SmartPayments Mobile devices through the company’s SmartPayments Server to a credit card processor for authorization and settlement.
While no one is certain about the size of the mobile-merchant market, which may include plumbers, electricians or home-based salespeople, it exists, and it is “untapped,” said Taylor, noting the iPhone increasingly is becoming a business tool.
