Mpayy Seeks Growth After Securing Additional Financing

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Mpayy Inc., a Chicago-based alternative-payments company, says it will use additional funding from U.S. Bancorp to grow its e-commerce, mobile commerce and widget-based payment services. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp also provided Mpayy with funding last year. "We want to tap into larger retailers," Conrad Sheehan, Mpayy founder and CEO, tells CardLine. "They have not been as aggressive in adopting alternative payments, and for a lot of good reasons. Any retailer should be extremely comfortable with running high volume through our platform." Launched in the first quarter, Mpayy says it provides consumers, small businesses, Internet retailers and charities with a variety of payment options. Consumers may make person-to-person funds transfers through Mpayy's online and mobile Web sites and by using a social-networking widget found on Facebook and MySpace. Consumers can pay for goods by linking a checking account to Mpayy. Small businesses and such independent salespeople as taxi drivers and flea-market vendors can use Mpayy's mobile-payment capability to turn their mobile phones into point-of-sale terminals. "It works on all phones, but it's particularly tailored to the most-popular devices," Sheehan says. New York-based charity Alliance for Lupus Research uses Mpayy's widget on social-networking sites to obtain donations. Sheehan claims Mpayy offers retailers a processing platform that is "50% to 60% less expensive than card-based processing." The company also is touting Mpayy's security. "We exceed all PCI standards," Sheehan says. "Retailers don't have to worry about storing any data because that information is hosted on servers by U.S. Bank."