Can you give our readers a summary of PaidYET and what its role is within the payments industry?
PaidYET can be summarized as a Google-fueled payment link platform that serves as a virtual point-of-sale (vPOS) system that replaces paper and phone credit card authorizations. It is like Square, but for non face-to-face transactions. PaidYET’s payment links are designed to be sent via email or text, as well as shared online and on invoices. Consumers can use the payment links to make payments without ever sharing their account information with merchants. One of PaidYET’s distinguishing features is that businesses have the freedom to plug in any merchant account.
Our main goal, and our biggest role in this industry, is to completely eliminate the sharing of credit card numbers for the underserved sector of merchants that we call “remote transaction merchants”. These are merchants for which neither traditional swipe nor online shopping cart models work, and typically bill their clients via invoices (such as law offices, medical offices, non-profits, wholesalers, contractors, technology providers, etc.).These merchants have traditionally been overlooked and underserved by the payments industry, which is surprising considering the recent explosion in fintech. PaidYET allows merchants to eliminate paper, alleviates PCI worries, and requires no integration. We believe that with nothing to steal, there would be no fraud.
Considering there are many ways to make mobile payments why would a consumer and a merchant choose PaidYET?
Security, simplicity, speed. Both consumers and merchants choose PaidYET over other mobile payment solutions because cards are never stored, touched, or even shared, yet running a transaction is as easy as one click. Other mobile solutions attempt to encrypt card information on a mobile device, while PaidYET’s patent pending platform completely eliminates the exchange of card data. In addition, other mobile payment options and payment links require technical integration and extensive setup, whereas PaidYET requires no hardware, no software, and no integration. Setup is fast and consumers can make payments to any merchant with just one click.
With fraud and security being a major concern in the payments industry and even more so with mobile payments what is PaidYet doing to help prevent and elevate these concerns for your clients and users?
Fraud and security are the major focus of PaidYET. Core to PaidYET’s platform is that card numbers are never shared with merchants, eliminating the concerns of merchant employee fraud and sensitive data breaches. PaidYET makes credit paper card authorization forms obsolete, and stops the sharing of card data over the phone. In addition, actual paypages are securely hosted by PaidYET, so security updates are automatic and do not require merchants to install anything within their business environment. Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is made that much easier for merchants and users can stop worrying about their card numbers being stolen from individual merchants that they shop at.
How do you see the payment industry evolving over the next five years?
Because we are a company founded and consisting of payment industry veterans, we have a lot to say about the evolution of the industry. We agree with a lot of the standard predictions: obviously, a cashless society is a very reasonable prediction, as is the replacement of—or at least fundamental integration between—big banks and technology. Increased concerns about security fueled by drastic increases in data breaches also seem reasonable to expect.
In terms of more bold predictions, we think that in the near future it is going to become very difficult for merchants to host their own payment pages because of the increased security risks. Merchants that want to directly touch credit cards will be required to pass rigorous certifications regardless of their size, and using a third party payment page (like PaidYET) is going to become mainstream.
Finally, we think it is going to become a lot more complicated for consumers before it becomes simpler. There are so many proprietary payment apps and technologies being launched that eventually consumers will be overwhelmed. When this happens, Visa and MasterCard will become the new “aggregators” of all the individual payment methods, and payments will once again become simple.
How do you see PaidYet evolving to meet the new needs of the future user and merchant?
We put a lot of effort into ensuring that PaidYET is highly agile, and we have a plethora of new features on our roadmap. Soon to launch are “channels” that allow for face-to-face (but still swipeless) transactions, automatic expired card updater, and strategic integrations with several technology partners (invoices, CRM, ERP). Upcoming versions will include P2P transactions and an eBill portal, which is much like today’s online billpay solutions but using credit cards to pay. With some of our pending large partnerships, we see PaidYET evolving to become a universally recognized payment method for both merchants and users, making sending and receiving payments virtually frictionless.
