Expanding their payments franchise beyond issuer-centric solutions, Fiserv today announced its small business solution designed to compete with other mobile-enabled payment acceptance devices. According to their press release:
SpotPay has a rugged design and a long swipe path to reliably read track one, two and three data from cards. The solution has strong fraud prevention tools and makes card transactions easy to accept with security designed to decline counterfeit cards. SpotPay users also get multi-layered security that protects sensitive card data from the point of swipe. The SpotPay solution surpasses the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) by leveraging MagTek’s secure, cloud-based gateway and card authentication process. MagTek(R) provides the secure card readers that work with iOS and Android(TM) mobile devices. Transactions are securely processed through WorldPay(R), the third-largest merchant acquirer in the world.
With financial institutions looking to expand their small-business reach, this product puts a bank or credit union in the middle of the acceptance stream and increases the potential value of a Fiserv relationship, which has long sought an entry point to a richer merchant services market from its core customers. If this product is successful, it opens the door for Fiserv to build out mobile services that can be rationalized across the cardholder-merchant value stream within a single institution such as discounting and loyalty.
“We just see the success the Square product has had out there, and many of our clients have expressed an interest,” said Rahul Gupta, group president of digital channels at Fiserv. “We view it as an extension of the banking relationship.”
Several banks will start offering the matchbox-sized device for their small-business customers this fall, and Fiserv plans a wider roll-out of the gadget and related services in mid-2013, Gupta said.
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