NAB Readies M-POS Launch at Apple Store; CurrentC Promises National Coupon Deals (Aug. 31, 2015)
With about a month to go before the U.S. chip card liability shift goes into effect, North American Bancard (NAB) has announced the Apple Store rollout next month of its new PayAnywhere Mobile card reader, an m-POS device specially adapted for NFC payments and EMV cards. Compatible with any iPhone or iPad, the new reader targets small businesses that want to accept Apple Pay, other contactless NFC payments, traditional magnetic stripe cards and chip cards via PayAnywhere’s processing services, NAB said. Issuers are pumping millions of EMV cards into the marketplace now, to comply with the EMV liability shift going into effect Oct. 1, 2015. NAB is offering $5,000 in free Apple Pay transaction processing for customers purchasing the $39.95 reader.
Separately, recent smoke signals from Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) indicate CurrentC is getting closer to market. MCX hasn’t set a date for its national rollout, but last week the company said it will begin a public trial of its m-payments service in Columbus, Ohio, “in the coming weeks.” CurrentC also will include the option for users to find and redeem coupons from national manufacturers that may be redeemed automatically at the point of sale through a newly inked deal with Inmar Inc., a promotion management and processing firm based in Winston-Salem, N.C. Inmar will provide digital coupon offers and discounts on national brand-name products such as detergent, diapers, food and other household items, according to an announcement.
Adding convenient, meaningful discounts and loyalty features could help drive consumer interest in m-payments, analysts have said. And if m-payments services can resolve one of the long-running puzzles in consumer marketing—freeing national manufacturer coupons from inefficient paper processes—it could be a huge cost saving for consumer product companies, according to Richard Crone, a principal with Crone Consulting LLC.
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