Cell Phones: The One Stop Shop

Dec. 3, 2010 - PRLog -- Cell phones are becoming the “one stop shop” of technology today.  They have been developing so rapidly over the past ten years, and now businesses have the capability to collect payments via their cell phone.  It is the latest and greatest POS option for merchants out there today.  The  list of useable phones is growing rapidly, and you don’t actually need to have a “smart phone” to process through your cell phone, as brands such as Motorola, Samsung , LG and others also have phones that are supported.

Many merchants think that the cost to this option is more expensive, as they think that there is only the option to key-in the transaction; however this is only a myth.  Iphone, Blackberry and Androids all have a swipe option that is just plugged into the audio jack on the cell phone.  This allows for the costs to stay low as the merchant now has card in hand, and the security risk is lessened.  So now you may be thinking, so the transaction cost stays low, but how much is the swipper?!  The average cost for the swipper is only about $50.  In terms of mobile payment processing this could be as much as $600 less expensive of upfront costs!  

You don’t have to just be a “mobile” merchant to use this solution, business that only have the need for one credit card machine are perfect customers for this product as well.  This gives a stationary business the opportunity to take their business everywhere with them, or provides the business with a low cost solution to purchasing new credit card processing equipment.  In addition to this, some cell phone credit card processing applications have the ability to be integrated into accounting applications, which is also a great solution for business owners.

Things to keep in mind when choosing a cell phone credit card processing application:

1.  Make sure that the application is compatible with your cell phone network (i.e. Verizon, AT&T, etc)

2.  Security is very important! There are two types of compliance the application provider must be: Password Authentication for Domain Storage System (PADSS) compliant and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant.

3.  Shop around for different pricing, since the market is so new, there is still a range of prices.  Here are the most common fees: Application Set-Up, Monthly Access Fee, Transaction fee, along with the typical merchant services account fees.  

If you have any questions about cell phone credit card processing applications please contact us (info@fgmsusa.com ) as we have experience with this new credit card processing solution.

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First Global Merchant Services is an electronic payment provider. We are a registered tier 1 merchant service provider with Visa and MasterCard which allows us to offer our clients the most competitive pricing while providing ongoing customer support.