JPMorgan Chase & Co will be testing a mobile payments service provided by GoPago Inc. The new service allows consumers to request and pay for goods or services in advance, then show the merchant the receipt displayed on the mobile device when picking up their order. The financial institution will be making a cash investment in the start-up, making JPMorgan Chase the first financial services company to partner with GoPago.
The bank will kick off a trial of the GoPago service in San Francisco in April, followed by another trial in Dallas soon afterwards, Jack Stephenson, the head of mobile banking apps for JPMorgan Chase, told Reuters in an interview.
An addition to allowing individuals to use their phones to pay for everything from dog food to haircuts, the application will provide small businesses with a kind of mobile storefront. “If you’re a mom-and-pop store you don’t have the resources to set up something like an Amazon has,” Stephenson said.
This is the most recent foray JPMorgan Chase has made into mobile transactions. This follows their developments of Quickpay, a P2P payments service, and Quickdeposit, a camera-based check deposit app, as well as investments in and partnerships with a number of other companies in the field.
