Taking advantage of the growing popularity of smartphones on college campuses, The CBORD Group now wants to help students do their laundry.
CBORD, which provides card services for universities, is partnering with Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies of Carmel, Ind., to roll out mobile-based campus card credentials at the University of San Francisco. In doing so, students may use their smartphones to pay for washing their clothes using their residence hall laundry. They also can use the contactless technology to enter the building.
The university recently completed the first phase of the residence hall pilot with “high acceptance,” Ithaca, N.Y.-based CBORD noted in a press release. This the first time the company has offered contactless technology to support student spending in addition to building access.
Instead of presenting their USF One Cards, students in the program used Ingersoll Rand’s Web-based aptiQmobile application on their personal iPhones to pay for laundry and enter the residence hall. Because iPhones do not contain Near Field Communication chips, a thin, plastic case instead holds the phone and contains a secure contactless chip and antenna.
The university uses CBORD’s CS Gold one-card system, which integrates with the aptiQmobile application. Students download the application from the iPhone App Store to install USF One Card credentials to their phones. They then open the app and tap the phone against the reader, which accesses the student’s account information on the chip and transmits the information to the reader, Jeremy Earles, Ingersoll Rand product marketing manager for readers and credentials, tells PaymentsSource. The reader then debits the student’s account for laundry service.
Judging from student reaction, the pilot was a hit.
“Our students have embraced it, telling us they prefer the convenience of their iPhones to digging for their One Cards,” Jason Rossi, the university’s director of One Card and Campus Security Systems, said in a news release.
The mobile-contactless option benefits students and the university, Rossi said. Spending transactions and building access are more secure, students enjoy the convenience of using their smartphones instead of the One Card, and the university expects to save money because the number of lost cards it would normally have to replace will be reduced, he said.
USF plans to expand its use of the contactless technology into other applications, Rossi said.
An earlier pilot at another university also proved successful.
CBORD and Villanova (Pa.) University, which rolled out a mobile contactless function in April for building access, now plans to expand it to allow students to use their smartphones to make payments, but that phase has not yet begun, a CBORD spokesperson says.
Other vendors also are supporting mobile payments at college-campuses, including Heartland Payment Systems Inc. (
Smartphone use by students has increased steadily over the past several years. A recent study by Ball State University found that 69% of college students use smartphones today, up from 27% that did in 2009.
Ingersoll Rand’s own study found that two-thirds of college students prefer to use cell phones instead of a campus ID card to access campus services, such as bus schedules and maps.
As the use increases, it’s likely that other campus card companies will roll out a mobile contactless option to support student transactions within the next five years, according to Robert Huber, president of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Robert Huber Associates, a business and marketing consultancy.
But he sees a potential problem with who would be responsible for smartphone transactions that go awry. Government regulations protect consumers from fraudulent debit and credit card transactions, but it’s unclear how consumers will be protected for smartphone purchases.
Even as students opt for using smartphones instead of their campus-issued cards, Huber doesn’t see the end of card use anytime soon.
“I don’t think they’ll totally go away,” he says.
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