Intuit Inc.’s deal to sell its GoPayment software application and card reader at Verizon Wireless stores could significantly accelerate competition in the fast-growing market for smaller-ticket mobile payments, one analyst suggests.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Intuit on Aug. 25 said its GoPayment app enabling business owners to accept credit cards via smartphones is currently available at 2,300 Verizon Wireless stores nationwide.
Although the GoPayment app is suitable for all types of businesses, the company is primarily targeting those with up to 50 employees, Sharna Brockett, Intuit spokesperson, tells PaymentsSource.
Verizon Wireless customers will be able to obtain a GoPayment reader for free with activation of a GoPayment account. The card reader, which sells for $29.97, attaches to a merchant’s smartphone through the audio jack.
The basic GoPayment service has no monthly transaction fees, but swiped transactions incur a 2.7% fee. A monthly payment option costs $12.95 a month, with swiped transactions at 1.7%, Intuit says.
GoPayment applications are available for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, T-Mobile, Inc.’s Android phones and Blackberry Inc. phones, as well as the Apple iPad and the Motorola Mobility Inc.’s Xoom 3G tablet, the company says.
Customers who purchase a smartphone for GoPayment use will need a $39.99 Verizon Wireless nationwide talk plan, while tablet and smartphone users will require a data package, starting at $30 monthly access for two gigabytes of data, Intuit says.
Observers say the deal may help further commercialize the fledgling market for smartphone-based mobile payments.
“The mobile payment mechanisms are not ready for prime time with a mass retailer, but (Intuit’s targeting of) this niche of casual sales, garage sales or small businesses is a huge market,” senior analyst Brian Riley of Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup, tells PaymentsSource.
GoPayment competes against a variety of new and emerging mobile-payment innovations, including Square Inc.’s mobile card reader, which has come under scrutiny recently for alleged security concerns (
Google Inc. next month is also expected to roll out its vaunted mobile wallet, which will enable mobile payment with smartphones using Near Field Communication technology (
Verizon views the opportunity to offer GoPayment on its branded phones as “a mobile-transaction game changer, bringing another dimension of must-have technology to the small business community,” Mike Schaefer, executive director of the Business Solutions Group for Verizon Wireless, said in a press release.
Security concerns will remain an issue within the mobile pay industry until all of the programs being promoted are certified as Payments Card Industry Data Security Standard compliant, Riley contends.
“This is one notch below Intuit’s natural market, but it shows they have a software device to capture credit card numbers for the casual sale, whether it is for someone mowing your lawn or doing your gardening,” Riley says.
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