Apriva Launches a Pair of Merchant Apps for Smart Phones

The choices available for merchants eyeing mobile commerce expanded this week when wireless-payment technology provider Apriva Inc. unveiled two applications that turn smart phones into mobile-payment terminals. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Apriva is differentiating itself in the booming m-commerce marketplace by claiming space as a full-service software and services provider for merchants who, instead of buying a wireless terminal, want to use their own smart phones as card-accepting devices. Unlike many payment applications that merchants can download without first having a gateway connection or merchant account, Apriva will distribute its new AprivaPay and AprivaPay Professional programs through its 280 channel partners of merchant acquirers, independent sales organizations, and other payments companies. Apriva will provide all the customer service and technical support. “There seems to be a real trend of people wanting to use their PDAs, smart phones … for payments,” Bill Clark, Apriva executive vice president and general manager for North America, tells Digital Transactions News. “Customers have asked, channels have asked. It's certainly something we think is our core competency.” AprivaPay is a Web-based system that requires no download by merchants who want to enable their iPhone, BlackBerry, or similar device to accept payment cards. AprivaPay Professional is a downloadable application for smart phones that, in addition to card-not-present transactions, can process card-present transactions through an optional Bluetooth card swipe. Both applications meet the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, according to Apriva. Both also provide customers with e-mail receipts, while AprivaPay Professional with the Bluetooth device also can print receipts. Citing industry research, Apriva says the U.S. has 1.3 million mobile merchants such as home-repair services, taxi and limousine operators, towing services and the like. Only 20% of the market is using any sort of wireless device, Clark says. But with the boom in Apple Inc.'s iPhone, the BlackBerry from Research in Motion Ltd., and other smart phones, Apriva is tailoring its AprivaPay systems to mobile merchants who don't want a specialized payment terminal. “This is built for customer-owned hardware,” says Clark. Pricing, which is on a monthly subscription basis, will be set by resellers. The wholesale cost is under $10 per month for AprivaPay and under $15 per month for AprivaPay Professional, according to Clark. The Bluetooth device wholesales for about $200. AprivaPay Professional is an updated version of an application dubbed Apriva POS for Windows Mobile that Apriva rolled out in 2006, Clark says. That application has about 2,000 users but is limited to devices that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system. The new AprivaPay Professional already runs on Windows Mobile and is going through certification processes to run on the iPhone and BlackBerry operating systems as well as Google Inc.'s Android, Clark says. Neither Apriva nor any of its partners have announced distribution agreements yet, but Clark says he expects one soon. The company's acquirer and ISO partners include such major players as Chase Paymentech Solutions, Elavon, First Data Corp., First American Payment Systems, First National Merchant Solutions, and TSYS Acquiring Solutions. Asked who Apriva's competition is, Clark says, “I think it's a little hard to say right now.” He notes that Apple's App Store, the huge marketplace for iPhone and iPod touch applications, probably has 20 to 25 payment applications. But few if any of them provide the activation, merchant boarding, customer service, and access to banking channels that come with Apriva's systems, according to Clark. “It's easy to create software, it's not so easy to create solutions,” he says. Also, Verifone Holdings Inc. and TSYS Inc.'s TSYS Acquiring Solutions unit last fall introduced mobile apps that work with card readers (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 8 and Oct. 15), and a startup called Square Inc. in December announced a beta test for a product that allows a smart phone to link to a specialized card-reading dongle to process cards (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 3). M-commerce isn't the only wireless market Apriva is eyeing. The company entered the vending machine card-payments niche about a year ago and plans to expand its presence, Clark says. He adds that the market consists of 5 million machines, only about 70,000 of which can process unattended payments. Apriva processes transactions for about 2,000 of them. “It's kind of a green-field opportunity, from my point of view, for merchant acquirers,” says Clark.