Mobile Payments With No Point Of Sale Changes

DigiMo, is a mobile payments platform that actually makes sense to me. When I sat down with CEO Yossi Yarkoni and VP of Marketing Nir Shimony at the Mobile World Congress to hear about their concept, which is piloting in Israel right now, the first thing I thought was “wow, why didn’t somebody think of this before”. It’s a pretty good idea and solves many of the problems that plague mobile, face-to-face payments.

It actually works with existing infrastructure and requires no Point Of Sale hardware changes by merchants. Really. No NFC terminals to buy. No new card readers needed. This is a major sticking point for merchant adoption of new mobile payments platforms.

How does DigiMo’s patented non-NFC reliant payments method work?

First, customers upload their payment credentials and account info to their secure DigiMo account in the cloud.

Next, DigiMo issues bank cards to merchants (instead of individual consumers like regular issuers). This special DigiMo card has a specific bin range. Participating merchants receive a DigiMo card and unique barcode/number for each of their Point Of Sale terminals.

Finally, at the time of a purchase, a customer uses the DigiMo mobile app to scan the barcode at the cash register. They then authenticate the app with pin or other security credentials which connects to their DigiMo account in the cloud. This info is sent to the cloud and lets DigiMo know at which unique cash register the transaction is taking place. The merchant closes the transaction loop by swiping the DigiMo card into the existing POS reader which rides the rest of the transaction on the regular card network and authenticates at DigiMo’s server and debits the customer’s account.

Boom. You’re done!

So that is the description of their face-to-face mobile payments solution but they also have scenarios for remote commerce, peer-to-peer money transfer and coupon/offers. These are all described in the video below.

They are currently trying to raise venture capital to bring their pilot to the U.S.A. I will be curious to see if this is a payments scenario that consumers could latch onto. My guess is that with digital natives this kind of thing will be all the rage.

 

Myxer survey reveals habits of mobile shoppers

It's convenient, easy on the pocket, and "cool". These are the top reasons why people shop from their mobile phones, according to a new study from Myxer.

by Helen Leggatt

Mobile phones aren't being used solely to help make shopping decisions, things are moving on apace. Nowadays consumers are using their devices throughout the entire purchase process.
Mobile entertainment content firm Myxer surveyed 2,400 mobile users for its Q2 BoomBox Report on mCommerce and found that over half (53%) had made a purchase with their mobile device.
Sixteen percent had made 10 purchases or more with their phone in a one month period and almost 1 in 5 had made between two and five purchases in a month.
Convenience was cited by users as the top reason (37%) for using their phones to shop, followed by price (24%), and the "cool" factor (22%).
"Everyone believes that mobile commerce is becoming more commonplace but what is interesting about these numbers was how many different purchases consumers are making per month as well as from different vendors," said Jeff Sass, chief evangelist at Myxer.
"Just as we are getting more comfortable using mobile devices for all different parts of our lives, now shopping is becoming a part of this, too," he added.
So, what are people buying with their mobile devices and how much are they spending? Myxer's survey (.pdf) reveals:
- The most popular purchase among respondents was music (68%).
- Second to music, 5% purchased physical items to be delivered. The same number purchased "other digital content".
- Few respondents used their mobile to purchase event tickets (2%) or ebooks (1%).
- Mobile shoppers are beginning to up the amount they spend per item online. While most (58%) spend up to $10 per purchase, 16% had spent between $11 and $20 on average per purchase and 26% averaged $20+.
- Charging purchases to a mobile bill is the preferred payment choice across all age groups (31%), while 18% prefer to pay on their phone by credit card.