Tag Archives: barclays

mobile wallet

$500 million Processed Through Mobile Wallets in [2023 Update]

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U.S. consumers spent over $500 million through mobile wallets on their smartphones last year. While this is miniscule as compared to the overall merchant services industry, where trillions of dollars that are spent annually through plastic credit and debit cards, it does signal a growing trend in the industry. Mobile wallet apps have experienced slow adoption rates in the U.S. but are projected to grow. According to Berg Insight, the industry could reach $35 billion annually by 2017.

While this figure still is just a fraction of the overall payment processing industry, it is a technology that as consumers adopt they will start to expect the infrastructure in any store they wish to spend money in. This presents a problem for small-businesses. For one, the physical machines can be expensive and require complicated installation. Some systems might not integrate into existing POS terminals at all. In addition to the implementation hurdles, policies must be formed to train staff on the procedures of actually taking a payment.

A short time ago, HMS announced a partnership with Barclays US to get the word out about the bPay mobile wallet initiative. bPay is a mobile wallet that has been initially rolled out in the Wilmington and Newark areas of Delaware. In the initial rollout, Host and bPay are looking for small and medium-sized businesses that are interested in being setup to take payments via the customer’s smartphone and a QR code that is presented on the POS system. In addition to the time savings offered, the platform also supports mobile marketing features such as SMS text and in app advertising.

Some merchants wonder why they should implement a solution like this if taking plastic cards isn’t broken. The answer is that in reality, the consumer is king. And because of stores like Starbucks, which has a mobile wallet integrated into their mobile app, paying with your smartphone is creeping into mainstream culture. As the industry continues to grow consumers will want to buy more than just coffee on their iPhone. Forward thinking merchants that want to stay ahead of the curve should look to implement a solution now as to not fall behind.

Businesses that are interested in learning more about getting setup to accept bPay transactions should give our payment experts a call at 877-517-4678 today!

Industry Terms: QR Codes

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This is the latest installment in The Official Merchant Services Blog’s Knowledge Base effort. We want to make the payment processing industry’s terms and buzzwords clear. We want to remove any and all confusion merchants might have about how the industry works. Host Merchant Services promises: we deliver personal service and clarity. So we’re going to take some time to explain how everything works. This ongoing series is where we define industry related terms and slowly build up a knowledge base and as we get more and more of these completed, we’ll collect them in our resource archive for quick and easy access.

Today I will define the term Quick Response Code, or QR Code. These codes are two dimensional barcodes, sometimes called print based hypertext links, that are designed to be decoded at a high speed. QR codes are increasingly used to identify the URL of a company’s web site so that mobile phone users can photograph the code and retrieve information about the organization. Some companies have even created billboard-sized QR codes for this purpose.

The versatility of the codes doesn’t stop there, a QR Code can also contain a phone number, an SMS message, a link to a photo, contact information or just plain alphanumeric text, and the scanning device will respond by opening up the correct application to handle the encoded data appropriately. With the technology of mobile phones constantly expanding, especially within mobile internet, QR Codes seem like the perfect solution to quickly and efficiently bring mobile phone users onto the mobile web.

QR Codes can also be used to facilitate mobile payments. Recently, Barclays Bank launched a mobile commerce QR code campaign right here in Delaware, called BarclayCard Mobile Wallet.  The program works in conjunction with a merchant’s credit card terminal,  a customer’s smartphone and the corresponding BarclayCard app.  When paying for something, the merchant prints out a special kind of QR code and hands it to the customer, who uses the BarclayCard mobile wallet application to scan the code and authorize the payment.  We went over this program in detail here a few weeks ago, when our own Steve Myers was the first to use the app at National 5&10.  Advancements in technology will lead to expansion and advancement in the uses of these codes, including new games or more advanced methods of mobile payment.