Credit Card Gist

Apple’s mobile retail store initiative is set to launch on Tuesday an iPhone app that would allow quick access to store information, technical specs, the Concierge reservation system, and the ability to make reservations for purchasing the new iPhone 4 in-store.

The application is to be installed on the iPod touch-based point-of-sale (POS) system, which Apple debuted in November 2009. Future application features may include the ability to scan product barcodes, automatic Genius Bar appointment check-ins by sensing the presence of a visitor’s iPhone and sending product announcements to the iPhones of consumers passing by the store.

Several Apple patents and trends in mobile finance point to the company’s ambition to eventually enable iPhones to be used for purchases within the stores, replacing debit and credit card payments or cash.

The current EasyPay Touch system handles credit, debit and cash transactions, as well as certain product returns. When making purchases with a credit card, customers write their signature on the iPod touch using a stylus.

(Via Ifoapplestore.com)

MasterCard launched last week a new application for both the iPad and iPhone. Called MoneySend, the app facilitates person-to person money transfers. MasterCard MoneySend is available for free download at the iPhone App Store.

“MasterCard MoneySend allows users to ‘Send,’ ‘Pay’ or ‘Request Funds’ for a wide range of reasons including the everyday ‘IOU,’ informal services purchased from friends and family, payments to a personal trainer, roommate, babysitter, gardener, housekeeper or repairman,” explained Joshua Peirez, Chief Innovation Officer, MasterCard Worldwide. “With MoneySend, users avoid the hassle of making payments with cash, check or money orders and collecting funds is as simple as a text message with the ‘Request Funds’ feature of the app.”

With MasterCard MoneySend users in the U.S. can send or request money via their iPhone through participating banks and credit unions. Alternatively, consumers can create a prepaid account through Bancorp Bank, and the bank then charges fees for money transfers and other services. MasterCard said it also is trying to enlist other financial institutions to join the MoneySend program.

(Via MarketWatch.com)

Beginning Tuesday, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) will allow MasterCard PayPass cardholders to use their credit cards instead of MetroCards to ride certain subways and buses in the city. Riders in London, Washington, D.C. and Hong Kong have had this option available for years.

PayPass cards have a chip that allows users to tap the cards against a specially designated box on buses or subway turnstiles, instead of swiping them.

The end goal of the experiment is the full replacement of the MetroCard by 2014, a project of MTA Chief Executive Jay Walder, who previously worked on implementing London’s Oyster Card – an all-purpose transit card. Walder hopes to eliminate the 15 percent cost the MTA incurs in collecting fares.

The new program does have its challenges, as Second Avenue Sagas points out. “How will a program that requires online registration scale across a system that averages five million riders a day? What will happen to riders who don’t have credit cards or don’t want to supply the MTA with their credit card info? And more importantly, will a credit card touch-and-go system be the final solution for a MetroCard replacement?”

(Via WSJ.com)

As digital payment forms are increasingly transforming the way we use credit cards, MasterCard is determined to keep up with the technological innovations by embracing them, as evident from its latest move. The second biggest credit card network said on Tuesday that it will let software developers create online applications on its payment system.

“A big part of the strategy is to be able to harness the innovation of others in the developer community to really push our business forward,” said Josh Peirez, MasterCard’s chief innovation officer.

As e-commerce and mobile payments are changing the way we use money, MasterCard wants to see what people can come up with for making online and “real world” payments, Peirez added.

“You’re seeing quite different ways people are paying for digital goods, but you haven’t really seen that translate into physical goods,” he explained. “It’s still really hard to buy a physical item from your phone.”

MasterCard already had a few apps, but if developers wanted to use its payment system, they had to get a merchant agreement, set up the payment system and make the consumer enter data each time. Developers will now be able to embed a payment feature in virtual games or in e-commerce apps on Twitter or Facebook, or to build an app that sends a text message to the card’s owner before a purchase is made.

But MasterCard’s biggest hope is that developers will find uses for its payment system that it hasn’t even thought of yet.

(Via NYTimes.com)

iPhone users may soon be able to make contactless credit card payments using their phones, according to a leaked press release that was quickly pulled. The wireless payment capability would be provided by Visa’s payWave service.

Where Visa payWave is supported, cardholders can wave their card in front of a reader, instead of swiping it through a point-of-sale (POS) terminal. According to Visa, “over 32,000 retailers from 20 top brands accept Visa payWave payments.”

To use payWave, iPhone users would have to have it pre-installed on a memory card. As the iPhone does not have an external memory slot of its own, users will be required to get a new iPhone protective case, which is said to be already Apple-certified.

Once they have payWave installed, iPhone users will only have to wave their phones in front of a payWave-enabled reader to make a payment. The mobile payment application can be password protected and will work on both iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G devices.

(See the full text of the pulled press release here.)