Computerworld - AT&T Inc. today announced a service for small and midsize businesses that want to use smartphones to accept credit and debit card transactions from customers. The service is based on technology from Apriva, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based manufacturer of wireless payment devices.
The service starts at $14.95 a month per smartphone in addition to monthly voice and data costs, according to AT&T's Web site.
Apriva announced the two software products underpinning the AT&T service in January. One, called AprivaPay, is browser-based and allows a business to process a credit or debit card transaction through most mobile phone browsers. A service worker, for example, could use the system to accept a credit card for payment in the field.
The other product, called AprivaPay Professional, offers more features with software that must be downloaded onto a smartphone. It can be integrated with a credit-card reader device and a device for printing receipts.
Apriva has offered a wide array of mobile payment devices, including the VeriFone line of wireless transaction terminals, for many years.
AT&T is offering the AprivaPay Professional service for download to Windows Mobile devices, although Apriva has said it will eventually also offer Android, iPhone and BlackBerry versions.
Mobile payments reached $68 billion globally in 2009 and should exceed $600 billion by 2014, according to Generator Research, a firm that AT&T quoted in its statement announcing the Apriva service. Mobile payments made using credit cards over smartphones account for just a small percentage of that total market. Most mobile payments today are made via SMS, or text, message, and mostly in undeveloped areas of the world, such as the Asia-Pacific region and Africa, according to Gartner Inc.
Compared with other major regions of the world, North America has the fewest users of mobile payment technology, Gartner said.
Read more about Mobile and Wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.
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