FI's Mobile Payment Strategies: The Next Step for Third Party Mobile Wallets

Only a few years ago financial institutions found themselves shuttling their mobile services, if they had any at all, to third party vendors. Third party payment apps offered what users originally wanted, quick ways to pay both online and in-store. Mobile payments made it possible to access funds with one or two clicks. Linking a bank account or debit card to a third party was easy and instantaneous. But technology and needs mature and what was once a simple solution is now too simple. Users want additional services and have higher expectations, in other words, users are looking to their banks and credit unions.

Increasing Services and Evolving Needs

Users began to see mobile payment options like PayPal or Android Pay as their financial institution and their bank became a distant redistributor of funds. To counter this, financial institutions must develop their own mobile payment systems but many users were already entrenched in third party applications. That trend is reversing.

As mobile users mature in both experience and in age, user needs have extended beyond quick transactions. Users are now looking for micro-credit options, mortgages and services that are best provided by their bank or other financial institution. Instead of relying on third-party payment apps, users are looking for third party solutions that align closely with their banking institution's services. Although third party payment systems are now offering credit and aligning with institutions like Citibank and Chase, users who have no desire to switch banking institutions find themselves drawing closer to their trusted institutions. 

Providing users with secure and extended services via mobile is essential for financial institutions to remain competitive. Choosing a third party provider that works in concert with your institution's services and patrons allows your institution to own the customer experience. Netclearance's mobile payment solutions can integrate seamlessly with your banking infrastructure to offer your own branded mobile payment solution. Contact us to learn more

How Digital Receipts Benefit Mobile Wallet Adoption

For as long as people have commenced and completed financial transactions, buyers and sellers have documented these purchases in written records. Paper receipts are a relic of generations of mercantile custom. While these receipts are useful for personal record keeping or keeping the documentation required for tax purposes, hanging on to a piece of paper is an outdated way of maintaining records. A growing number of companies are offering digital alternatives for financial record keeping. But look a little deeper and you’ll see that the ability to store receipts electronically just scratches the surface of the benefits they bring to mobile wallet technology adoption.

It’s easy to take for granted now, but the smartphone is a relatively young technology. When these devices started to find their way into the pockets of consumers, it was only a matter of time before new mobile financial software would ease wallets out of consumer pockets altogether. One of the hurdles that’s keeping mobile wallets from taking off is the failure to take into account the desire, and to some, the need, to keep a receipt to document a transaction.

Receipts are useful for consumers, helping them track their purchases. But they’re also valuable to retailers. Receipts give merchants another way to communicate promotional information to consumers, David Salisbury explains in MobilePaymentsToday. Conveying that information in a digital receipt just makes it easier for the consumer to absorb.

Providing consumers with a way to keep digital records of their purchases should help speed up their adoption of mobile wallet technology, Salisbury says. The challenge for this technology is partly compatibility. There’s a lot of financial software out there and a growing number of merchant payment hardware that this software must work with. That’s where Netclearance can help. We’ve developed software called mBeaconPay that overcomes compatibility issues by working on all smartphones. The technology also easily integrates with the financial networks of all major payment processors. And for those consumers and retailers who value a way of keeping track of transactions, mBeaconPay also supports digital receipts. Don’t let receipts be a barrier to the adoption of new mobile financial technology. Contact us to learn more about what mBeaconPay can offer you. 

Witness the Oncoming Banking Revolution via Blockchain and Mobile Payments

 Over the past two years, both established companies and new startups have been investing heavily in improving their blockchain and mobile payment infrastructure. A blockchain is defined as a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of data records secured from tampering and revision. The benefits of increased security and near-instantaneous availability of funds will radically change how we currently view online mobile payments.

    There are four major reasons why blockchain will revolutionize mobile payments:

1.  Increased mobile payment security
2.  Instant access to funds
3.  Expansion of digital wallets
4.  Reduction in the cost of remittance fees

    Mobile payments have often been considered vulnerable given the exponential growth of mobile payment fraud especially fraud and duplicate charging. The blockchain has the ability to reduce, if not eliminate, this vulnerability since transactions are logged into a permanent ledger that is impervious to tampering. In addition, the distributed record of financial transfers and extremely secure user accounts will provide a significant barrier to any cybercriminal activity.

    The second benefit of blockchain technology is the near-instantaneous availability of funds following a financial transfer. Currently, Bitcoin transfers often take several minutes to go through while other mobile payments transfers take several hours to finalize. The blockchain will revolutionize this payment transfer through use of significantly faster networks. By the time you finish reading this sentence, the funds transferred from one account to another will be fully available.

    Another benefit of the blockchain is the near-elimination of almost all other methods of payments. Check payments were all-but-eliminated with the invention of the ATM. In the same way, the blockchain will complete the transformation to a nearly cashless society relegating cash and credit cards as obsolete relics. With the ability to use multiple signature methods for verifying purchases and the promise of a reduction of fees on online purchases through enhanced security, the digital wallet will rapidly become the payment method of choice in today's economy.

    The last significant benefit of blockchain is significantly reduced remittance fees. As reported by theWorld Bank, the cost of sending remittances was 7.37% as of December 2015. Blockchain promises to greatly reduce if not eliminated transfer and processing fees providing a significant economic benefit to its users.

    Blockchain and mobile payments promises to change the way we currently think about online payments through enhanced security, instant fund availability and reduced fees. In the years to come, blockchain stands to become the payment method of choice across the globe.

How Banks Can Catch Up With Third-Party Mobile Wallets: It's A Priority

If how banks can catch up with third-party mobile wallets isn't a priority for your institution now, it soon will be.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, banks have been losing ground to mobile wallets for years. Customers have to deal with their banks less and less, and this puts financial institutions at risk of losing customer loyalty. 

Instead of conceding to the competition, financial institutions can now jump into the game with their own, branded mobile wallet. Netclearance has a turnkey solution called mBeaconPay that will help bring your customers loyalty back. Netclearance's smart payment terminals come various form factors that are tailored to fit your needs exactly. 

Our solution is already surging in popularity. Danske Bank's mobile wallet is one of the top 5 across mobile wallets in Scandinavia and is used on nine out of ten smartphones in Denmark. Our unparalleled mobile customer engagement continues to keep us on top. Banks need to stay relevant in the age of mobile payments, and Netclearance mBeacons are your key to the future. 

The most important feature of mBeaconPay is its ubiquitous platform. This smart payment terminal is compatible with all major mobile operating systems and cash registers. It can work with cash or credit card based transactions. This means that no matter what device they are carrying or payment method, your customers transactions will go through seamlessly. It offers unparalleled mobile customer engagement that is unique in the industry.

Your bank can take the lead in your customers mobile payment experiences. Since the day people leave their houses without their cards is closer than we think, it's time to take action. Contact Netclearance for your turnkey mobile wallet solution, mBeaconPay. 

The benefits of mobile wallets and knowing the most appropriate one for you

We all have several cards that we carry on a daily basis. These cards range from several credit and debit cards, loyalty or gift cards, a driver’s license to membership cards for such places as the library or the sports club. If we are to store all these cards in our wallets, they would be too bulky, even though we were to put them in our backpacks, they would still be a load for us.

With all these cards to carry, we all long for that day when we will be able to hold our phone and be able to access all the cards you need for that specific day. Through a mobile app, mobile wallets are taking us a step closer to the realization of that aspiration. The mobile app can consolidate the credit, debit, loyalty and gift cards onto the phone.

However, these mobile wallets have become so many such that choosing the one that fits you well is now becoming a hurdle. One of the ways of determining the mobile wallet that suits your needs is by considering its functionality for different card types as discussed below.

Credit & Debit Cards

Primarily, your mobile wallet should store your debit and credit cards securely. Storing is not enough, but the wallet should allow you to pay with these cards using your cell phone. A good mobile wallet should enable you to store a variety of cards, such as branded cards, national and local bank cards as well as major brands cards.

Loyalty Cards

Almost every store, restaurant, boutique or supermarket you frequently visit will offer you a loyalty card. You obviously want to earn discounts and freebies from these places, but if they all give you a physical loyalty card, you will end up having a hefty stack of these cards. For this reason, you should choose a mobile wallet that allows you to store all your loyalty cards and enable you to track the points in every card.

Gift Cards

According to an article by Robert Teitelman and Lawrence C. Strauss, close to $1 billion in gift card went unredeemed in 2015. Gift cards go unredeemed because some are lost, others are forgotten while in others, unused balances left on the cards after a purchase goes to waste. You want a digital wallet that will help you spend every coin on the cards.

At Netclearance we offer the mBeaconPay, a turn-key mobile payment smart terminal and software solution which is a perfect match for all your mobile wallet need.

Boost Brand Loyalty Through Private Mobile Wallets

The goal of organizations today is to make the customer experience simple, seamless, and accurate. When combined with great products, these attributes can help organizations build brands that drive customer loyalty. This loyalty is the treasure that every organization is searching for, and branded mobile wallets help retailers boost customer loyalty. 

It would be difficult not to think of Apple Pay or Android Pay immediately when considering mobile wallets. While these are great mobile services, retailers and banks are starting to see the loyalty advantage of creating their own mobile wallets. These organizations are implementing Mobile Wallets with the understanding that they must reward loyalty to build loyalty. 

Organizations have found two clear ways to reward customer loyalty through delivering their own mobile wallets. First, they reward their customers by saving them time. They do this by allowing them to initiate and complete their business through an easy to use interface. Second, they have integrated their organizations rewards systems to these apps to provide customer with further incentive to utilize their mobile wallet.

By finding ways to save their customers both time and money, retailers are seeing an increase in brand loyalty. This is not surprising, since time and money are two of the most valued resources in this fast-paced society. Fortunately, Netclearance offers simple, seamless, and accurate, turn-key solutions for retailers and banks to implement their own branded wallets. With this technology, any organization can now bolster their brand loyalty by giving customers control of their time and money. 

Banks can leapfrog third-party mobile wallets with their own solutions

Technology is changing the world, day by day. And with each day, its reach broadens -- now, the smart phone has been introduced to two-thirds of American adults. And with those smartphones, the world of technology is reaching into an enormously consequential domain: finance. The flow of money across the globe, between individuals, institutions and vendors is incredibly lucrative for many, but there is an upstart in the traditional models of payment. Now, instead of swiping a credit card when paying for something, customers can use mobile wallets instead.

A mobile wallet, even though linked to a bank account, often is administrated by an outside source -- for example, Apple Pay. A customer paying with Apple Pay will draw money from their bank account, but use an app on their phone at the register. The upside to this is that customers no longer have to lug around all of their credit or debit cards; the downside, for financial institutions at least, is that companies that create and administrate these apps (like Apple, Google, et al.) charge fees to the banks.

Thus, banks are at a huge disadvantage -- and with the growth of mobile wallets, they stand to lose even more. If banks do not act to catch up to third-party mobile wallets, they stand to lose out on the important stream of money across the globe. However, some banks are slowly working on developing competing mobile wallets -- but they may not work, or may come to late.

For the financial institutions that are really aware of the importance of mobile wallets (like Danske Bank's MobilePay), they are taking advantage of turnkey solutions -- easily implementable systems that can help them make up ground and maintain their bottom line. Danske Bank, a leader in the field with 30,000 merchants across Scandinavia, has opted to use a solution called mBeaconPay by Netclearance. And it's working: the mobile wallet is among the top three mobile apps in the region.

So the question is really whether banks want to invest in their own success. If they use turnkey solutions like that offered by Netclearance, they stand to make up ground against third-party mobile wallets. If not, they have a long road ahead of them.

Branded mobile wallets help retailers boost customer loyalty

Although the Uber moment for banks arrived last year, there is still time for them to create new revenue streams, or face the consequences of not doing so.  Decreasing revenue and increasing costs are forcing banks, including big names such as Bank of America and BNY, to lay off employees and automate functions. This tactic of slashing costs can be helpful up to a point, but what about exploiting new markets and technologies to create business and healthier balance sheets?

The mobile payments space is full of competition, with upstarts like Square and titans like Google and Apple all vying for a slice of the market. However, it still presents growth opportunities for banks. Customers want an app that allows them easy access to products they like, which Apple, Google, and Square have all failed to deliver.

On the other hand, Starbucks has enjoyed the rewards that come with their successful mobile payment and reward application. By building a product that works for both their customers and for the company, they have seen enormous success, with 21% of all Starbucks transactions involving their loyalty program. Their loyalty program is easy to use, and encourages spending, meaning those on both sides of the exchange leave happy.

How can banks create an equally tangible and profitable product? Banks have access to huge, proprietary data about their customers’ spending habits, which some have begun using to offer customers more personalized experiences and recommendations. When combined with partnerships with outside retailers and firms, this data could be used to drive spending and create customer satisfaction on a larger scale than the loyalty program for a single company.

Of course, banks are not technology companies by nature, and it requires a huge amount of work to bring a viable and useful product to market. Netclearance Systems Inc can help, with its existing technologies and experience in the fast-growing space of mobile payments. Its services, such as mBeaconPay, can help ensure client satisfaction with mobile banking apps by refining existing recommendation technologies. In doing so, Netclearance can contribute to client retention and creation.

Branded Mobile Wallets Help Banks Retain Their Customers’ Loyalty

According to Pew Research Center, two-thirds of Americans now own smart phones. For 7% of Americans, that is the only way they access the Internet outside of work. And it's more true of younger adults, 15% of them, than for the older population, who use personal computers or laptops.

Therefore, it's only logical that major brands want smart phone users to use their mobile wallets. Starbucks is the clear winner and model for success that other companies wish to emulate. This article in Mobile Payments Today wonders whether discount stores such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl's can achieve the same success.

Starbucks launched its mobile wallet in late 2012, and now processes 21% of their orders through it. 16 million customers use it.

According to Financial Brand technology companies such as Google and Samsung want a piece of this huge market as well.

And banks and credit unions are not ready to yield the financial services sector either, especially since they are rolling out ATMs that use mobile phones instead of plastic cards to make transactions.

However, for consumer companies, using a tech company's mobile payment solution is not optimal. Wal-Mart wants its customers loyal to Wal-Mart Pay, not Apple Pay or Android Pay. Nor do they want customers to think of Bank of America or their local credit union.

Just settling up the branded mobile wallet app on their phone engages the customer with the brand name. Decades of advertising and marketing experience has proven the more consumers think or interact with a brand, the more loyal they become to it. It's the principle of consistency. After installing the Wal-Mart mobile wallet on their phone they're more likely to go there than to Target on their next shopping trip.

15% of American consumers used a mobile wallet in the last half of 2015. 22% expect to do so in the first half of 2016. Obviously, this market cannot be ignored.

The consumer brands have one advantage the banks and tech companies can't match. Like Starbucks, they can attach a loyalty rewards program to reward them for shopping at that store and for using the mobile wallet. Therefore, they can feel virtuous for saving money in the future.

It's also likely that in the future consumer brands will partner with technology companies and banks, as Starbucks has done with Chase Pay, because some consumers may prefer to use one wallet to handle all their payments.

Netclearance Systems Inc offers turnkey wireless sensor and mBeaconPay technologies that enable both merchants and banks to bring out their own mobile wallets for their customers. Because mobile wallets do help retain customer loyalty, consumer businesses and banks need to offer their own branded options before their customers begin using Google's Android Pay or Apple Pay.

Smart Badge to Power Workforce IoT Applications

Netclearance, a maker of multi-sensor beacons and software designed for a range of business applications, such as optimizing workflows and tracking assets, has introduced a new product called the mBeaconCard. Approximately the size of a credit card, the mBeaconCard contains a Near Field Communication (NFC) module, as well as a Bluetooth radio. It can be used not just as an identity card or badge, but also to enable workers to make purchases using its NFC module, as well as to track the locations of employees on job premises, by utilizing the card's Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio. Alternatively, the card could also be mounted to high-value mobile assets and be used to track their indoor locations.

The basic mBeaconCard configuration contains a microprocessor, a BLE radio and an NFCmodule. But customers can also order a version that comes with an embeddedaccelerometer, a vibration sensor and a magnetic sensor—either a compass or a reed switch—in order to support a wider range of applications, such as those requiring movement to trigger tracking.

The BLE radio is used to transmit sensor data or information written to the mBeaconCard's 2 kilobytes of memory, explains David Fernandez, Netclearance's founder and CEO. It transmits data packets to mBeaconGW, Netclearance's beacon gateway appliance, or to nearby smartphones running the Netclearance mobile application.

Netclearance's mCloud Content Management System software is used to collect and manage the data transmitted by the badge, and from there it can be sent to Netclearance's business application or analytics software. Conversely, the data can be forwarded to third-party applications or analytics platforms via an application programming interface. Using the mBeaconGW gateway and an external NFC reader, employers can set up an access-control system. If the badge is being used for room-level tracking, Fernandez says, location can be determined to within a few meters.

Pricing information has not yet been released, but Netclearance will demonstrate the mBeaconCard and its full product portfolio at the RFID Journal LIVE! 2016 conference and exhibition, taking place on May 3-5, in Orlando, Fla., in the Internet of Things Pavilion (booth #728B).

Original article from IoT Journal: http://www.iotjournal.com/articles/view?14379

Effective wallet strategies give financial institutions an edge in a mobile centric world

Financial Institutions' Mobile Wallet Strategies are becoming a top concern as banking is more frequently completed via mobile wallets. According to an article on PaymentsSource.com, 2.6 billion people in the world now own smartphones, and by 2020 that number is likely to jump to 6.1 billion, or 70 percent of the world's population. Further, it is now estimated that 69 percent of mobile users conduct their banking via their mobile device, or "mobile wallet."

Pymnts.com reports that, according to a study by Javelin, in 2014 most people who conducted banking via their mobile wallets did so using their financial institutions' mobile banking app. However, in 2015, this trend changed, and PayPal and Visa apps surpassed financial institution apps as the preferred mobile wallet providers. This new trend tends to leave financial institutions "out of the loop" when it comes to mobile wallet transactions. Further, rather than developing their own mobile wallet-friendly apps, they are relying on third parties such as Apple Pay and Android Pay.

So how can financial institutions step up their game? First, they will have to modify their perception of customer service to pertain to mobile interaction, placing less emphasis on factors like bank location and face-to-face interaction and more emphasis on factors like app development. Second, according to an article in Mobile Payments Today, financial institutions should develop "stepping-stones" toward the mobile scene, such as cardless ATMs. Finally, according to the same article, financial institutions should implement customer value and loyalty programs for customers who use their apps. 

Netclearance offers products, a plan, and the technology that is synonymous with the mobile wallet. As consumers choose to pay daily using their cell phones at various merchant locations, it is time for financial institutions to extend their arm of influence and corner this market. Facilitated by mBeaconPay technology, Netclearance eliminates the middle man so common in these transactions and offers a streamlined system between only the customer, the merchant, and the bank. 

Financial Institutions Mobile Wallet Strategies Flailing at Best

Mobile-savvy customers around the world are just waiting for the right mobile wallet to show up. With a cell phone in the hand of virtually every account holder, now is the time for financial institutions to corner the market. Everyone wants immediate access to their financials, and as research from Javelin indicates, many people are no longer selecting their financial institution as first choice. PayPal and Visa have attracted consumer attention as well as won over customers from their primary financial institution. 

Deemed the Wallet Wars, it is not that customers wouldn't prefer to use a wallet created by their financial institution; relationships are key to securing and maintaining users of a particular mobile wallet. Now is the time for banks to designate specific attention to providing a mobile wallet their clients will use. 

At best, many banks are relying on these third parties (Apple, Google, Samsung, PayPal) to provide a mobile wallet solution; however, this may not be the best approach. According to one site, 

Issuers whose only mobile-payment aspirations are to integrate with third-party wallets are putting themselves in a highly precarious situation. As these wallets scale, bank customers will become increasingly entrenched and weighed down by the ecosystem pull commanded by the likes of Apple and Google. Worse, they will begin to associate commerce-enablement not with the bank that issued their card, but with the technology vendor whose brand wraps the application they use.

Branding is essential in all corporate endeavors. Financial institutions must remain astute in their approach to mobile wallets as our society is entrenched in cashless transactions. Instead of allowing third parties to profit from current customers, it is time for financial institutions to use their existing customer relationships and create a mobile wallet with their name on it.

Netclearance offers products, a plan, and the technology that is synonymous with the mobile wallet. As consumers choose to pay daily using their cell phones at various vendors, it is time for financial institutions to extend their arm of influence and corner this market. Facilitated by mBeaconPay technology, Netclearance eliminates the middle man so common in these transactions and offers a streamlined system between only the customer, the merchant, and the bank. 

Now is the time to put your name in the palm of every customer's hand. 

Branded Mobile Wallets Help Retailers Boost Customer Loyalty and Reduce Transaction Costs

Branded mobile wallets are the wave of the future because they help companies give their customer loyalty a boost. First, they offer a quick and convenient method of keeping track of customer loyalty programs. Second, they offer an easy payment method. Third, they keep customers engaged in the brand experience through the use of a payment app.

Starbucks is an example of a company currently boasting a successful branded mobile wallet, as noted by a December, 2015, article in Mobile Payments Today. Their loyalty program, familiar to almost all their regular customers, is made even more accessible by their payment app, which automatically keeps track of when they will receive their next free beverage. 

The Starbucks app also offers its customers the convenience and security of paying on their mobile device. To use it, customers simply hold their phone up to the scanner as they check out. In addition, this method of payment is only accessible through their mobile device, which can be locked and coded via password or thumbprint, ensuring the security of the payment process.

Finally, the Starbucks branded mobile wallet makes certain that customers maintain consistent contact with the Starbucks experience, since they access payment and loyalty program points through the Starbucks app. This way Starbucks customers remain "in the know" regarding new promotions and other changes to the Starbucks experience, without having to deal with a third-party app. This substantially increases customer loyalty to the brand.

As noted above, the Starbucks branded mobile wallet has been most successful in today's increasingly app-minded society. Mobile Payments Today tells us that 16 million customers use the mobile wallet app, accounting for 21 percent of Starbucks transactions. Other companies, such as Wal-Mart and Target, are now following suit with their own branded mobile wallets.

Our very own mBeaconPay smart payment technology, which works with and operates on a wide variety of POS and smartphones, allows customers and retailers to exchange payment information in a quick and efficient manner via a branded mobile wallet.

So next time you get a coffee or even head toward the check-out counter at your local department store, get ready for quick and easy payment with your mobile device. You'll be joining a growing number of people who enjoy the same convenience.

Cryptocurrencies Spreading in Canadian Retail

Cryptocurrencies in retail are becoming more practical as a payment form with new businesses accepting and now even selling bitcoin every year. 

Canadian bitcoin users now have an additional 6,000 retail locations to purchase their favorite cryptocurrency, according to CryptoCoinNews.

As bitcoin transactions continue to expand, more and more consumers are looking for easy and practical ways to purchase bitcoins. 

Thanks to bitcoin ATM maker BitAccess, Canadian consumers have access to a new bitcoin purchasing method. 

BitAccess is based in Ottawa, and this week they detailed how customers will be able to purchase bitcoin at 6,000 retail locations. They'll do so with a ‘Flexipin’ voucher. The vouchers can be purchased with cash or a payment card, and they'll work like a gift card. 

BitAccess said Flexipin is a "prepaid voucher that lets you top-up your accounts to make secure, hassle-free online payments. Because Flexepin are prepaid, the risk of having your identity and banking information exposed online is eliminated."

After a customer buys the Flexipin voucher from a cashier, they'll be given a receipt. Sixty seconds later, that receipt can be redeemed for the cash equivalent of the cryptocurrency that was purchased. 

Flexipin vouchers will be sold in denominations of $10, $30, $50, $100 and $250.

BraveNewCoin reported that although purchases can be made anonymously, customers will need to have a BitAccess web account in order to redeem their coins. 

BitAccess has also implemented a purchase cap of $250 worth of the cryptocurrency each day. 

To redeem bitcoins after purchase, customers just need to log into their BitAccess account and type the code printed on their Flexipen voucher they received from their cashier. 

More retailers are beginning to accept bitcoin payments, and if your business is seeking a way to accept bitcoins, look no further than Netclearance's own mBeaconPay technology. The mBeaconPay platform integrates with cash registers, enabling them to process bitcoin transactions.

If you're interested in learning more about our mBeaconPay technology, please contact us.

How to Develop an Effective Mobile Loyalty Program with Smart Beacons

So you have decided to jump at the idea of starting a mobile loyalty program for your business, now what?  What are the next steps you should take?  How will you go about creating your program?  We shall provide answers to these questions for you now.

Come Up With a Plan

First answer the question, "will it be geared toward individual consumers or businesses?  This is an important factor to ponder.  You will need to tailor your program to the type of clients you are aiming to attract.  It is possible to cater to both, individuals AND businesses.  In that case, you would likely want to develop two separate programs to accommodate the specific needs of each type of patron.

What Features Will You Include?

It is important for you to plan what features you want to include in your loyalty program.  For instance, will repeat customers earn points toward their reward?  Do you have another plan in mind for how they go about accumulating credits for their purchases? 

After you decide this, you must figure out what form the reward itself will take.  Will it be a deeply discounted item or a free one?  Will there be a monetary limit to what that offer can be applied to?  Will there be any kind of limit on how often rewards can be redeemed?  These are all necessary features to decide upon before you hire somebody to develop your program.

Sound Advice for Creating Your Program

First, it is advisable to make a list of everything you want to include in your loyalty program.  This will be the basis of the program so do not leave anything out, write down all details.

The most critical aspect of this whole loyalty thing is to hire the right company to design your program.  Netclearance can guide you every step of the way.  With smart beacon loyalty solutions like Bounty you want to ensure you keep customers returning to your business.

The API-fication of Payments in Retail Leads to Smart & Frictionless Transactions

Application Programming Interface (API) technology is the wave of the future, changing the way businesses around the world develop software for various applications. There is one area, however, where API is not being widely utilized. At Netclearance, we provide our clients with APIs for retail payments, offering solutions that are revolutionizing mobile payments in the offline world.

What is API technology?

API refers to a series of routines, protocols, and tools that are used for building software applications. These applications are utilized for a variety of different purposes, such as web streaming and networking. However, API for payments is pretty rare in the offline world, indicating an area of untapped potential. With the API-based approach for payments in the brick-and-mortar world developed by Netclearance, we help our clients tap into that potential.

How API for Payments Works

Today's offline multiparty model for payments is extremely involved, incorporating consumers, different categories of banks, merchants, merchant processors, card networks, and much more. This excessive amount of parties makes for a convoluted and fee heavy system. The online multiparty model for payments is slightly better, involving more streamlined communication between the different parties. However, we think a more streamlined method is possible in the offline world.

Here at Netclearance, we promote a more streamlined three-party model without middle-men, involving just the merchant, the consumer, and the bank, facilitated by our mBeaconPay technology. mBeaconPay allows for the use of mobile devices for cashless transactions at the POS. While many other companies offer mobile solutions, they are simply disguised versions of the excessively complicated multiparty and card-centric solution. Only with Netclearance you will find such an innovative API-based approach for payments without the fees and risks associated with credit card based systems.

When you go with Netclearance's smart payment terminals and APIs, you will be able to take your exisitng POS to the next level with API for payments that allows for cashless, fast and secure mobile transactions. Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you implement your own mobile wallet fast and easy without the hassle of PCI, HCE or any other legacy compliance.

Netclearance at Retail Business Technology Expo 2016

Netclearance at Retail Business Technology Expo 2016

On March 9th, we will be attending the annual Retail Business Technology Expo at the Olympia in London. The event is a great place for retailers from all areas of the industry to come and learn about all the latest tech and services that can help them to increase productivity, reduce costs and improve the customer experience. It is the ideal place to keep up to date with all the latest solutions, tools and tactics.

We will be showcasing our mBeaconPay technology and our CEO David Fernandez will also be hosting a speaking session, ‘Creating a cashless society – disruptive technology for the retail payments sector’ at 13:15 on 9th March in the Payments Theatre.

During the speaker session, David will share his insights into the roll-out of the mobile payments system that has revolutionised payments in major supermarkets and fast food outlets in Denmark and Norway. He will also discuss how the highly disruptive technology takes transactions direct from bank to retailer, not only changing the value chain by removing merchant fees, acquirers and PSPs from the fee structure, but also enhances security as there is less chance of fraud or error.

We will also be exhibiting our complete range of proximity beacon technology, including BLE, WiFi and RFID sensors, for proximity marketing, real-time tracking, customer engagement and Business Intelligence on stand 124. We will demonstrate how beacons for mobile payments and proximity marketing for retailers, banks and merchants can be combined and used for coupons and loyalty schemes.

 For more information or to arrange an interview with David Fernandez, CEO of Netclearance contact Bright Bee PR: Netclearance@brightbee.co.uk or on 020 8819 3170.

Smart Mobile Loyalty Strategies Boost Customer Engagement and Profits

One simple yet powerful strategy at the forefront of any successful business is that company's customer loyalty program.  With such a strategy returning customers are rewarded for their patronage, often with a tremendously discounted, or sometimes completely free, item of the customer's choosing.  Now companies can take that a step further and, with the aid of today's technology, implement a mobile loyaltyprogram.  Exactly what is that?  Let's find out now.

General Definition

A mobile rewards program is basically the same thing as a typical customer loyalty rewards program, the difference being the customer utilizes it through their SmartPhone or tablet.  Nowadays a high percentage of the public uses some form of mobile technology, including for payment methods and customer rewards programs. 

Why Use a Mobile Customer Rewards Program?

The biggest reason is that it is more convenient for the customer than carrying around a card in their wallet.  Instead that business' rewards system is used by something they carry anyhow - their mobile phone.  Rewards points are accumulated in the same manner as with a physical card but are stored on, and cashed in from, the person's mobile device.

Advantage for Businesses

Having a mobile customer rewards program is great for business because it makes it easy for customers to use it.  This is a huge incentive for them to keep returning time and time again.  They do not have to waste time searching for a physical card.  Instead they can pull out their phone and press an app button for that merchant.  Your business will be treating your customer's phone as a loyalty rewards card. 

How Does This Type of Program Work?

You set up an attractive-looking kiosk inside your business that invites your customers to come over.  When they do, a friendly employee will encourage them to participate in YOUR business' mobile customer loyalty program.  As an added bonus your business can offer them the option of receiving pertinent text messages that are related to your program. 

Netclearance offers a turn-key mobile loyalty program called  Bounty  that can kick-start your mobile loyalty initiatives with a low-entry cost and support for the major mobile platforms. Contact us and visit www.bountyusa.com to request more information.

New Payment Technology Helps Banks Catch up with Third-Party Mobile Wallets

When consumers prepare to pay for purchases these days, a growing number of them are whipping out their phones instead of their wallets. Mobile payment apps have added a new and convenient way for people to pay for goods and services. As these digital wallets gain market traction, banks could find themselves in trouble. Conventional ways of payment -- and the revenue that they produce for banks -- are falling by the wayside. 

When consumers pay by swiping a payment card, banks make money through the fees that are attached to each transaction. Transactions completed through mobile payment services such as Venmo, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are now eating into that bank revenue. There are more players entering the space.According to Bloomberg News, Walmart, Starbucks and even Chevron gas stations are working on plans for their own digital wallets. Banks know that the days of debit and credit cards being the preferred method of payment are numbered. “We see a day when customers are leaving their home without their card,” Jonathan Velline, head of ATM and store strategy at Wells Fargo, told Bloomberg.

Some banks are taking steps to compete with their own digital wallets. Capital One has introduced a digital wallet, Bloomberg notes. JP Morgan Chase is preparing to launch one soon. While they may be late to the game, they may be able to reach a broader set of consumers. The digital wallets offered by Apple and Samsung work with Apple and Samsung technology respectively. Banks could offer the advantage of being able to work with any smart device, regardless of its maker. 

You don’t have to wait for U.S. banks to implement mobile wallets to see the technology in action. European banks are already early adopters of such technology. Denmark-based Danske Bank, for example, uses mobile payment hardware and software developed by Netclearance. The software, called mBeaconPay, works on all smartphones. The technology enables banks to offer consumers their own digital wallet solution without being tied to a specific mobile device maker. Danske Bank has deployed mBeaconPay-enabled mobile wallets to more than 30,000 merchants across Scandinavia, where it has quickly established itself as one of the top five mobile apps in the region. 

Banks, like any business, count on new customers to grow. The problem for banks is that millennials who could become their new customers are deciding against conventional banking and choosing instead to bank through the growing number of mobile payment services. If banks want a fighting chance to catch up with third-party mobile wallets, they’ll need a digital payment technology to do it. Contact us to learn more about how mBeaconPay is helping banks deploy their own mobile wallets.

Cryptocurrencies Accepted Here

The topic of economics is on many people's minds, these days. Numerous presidential candidates discuss economic policy on the campaign trail and in debates with other candidates. Few of them mention Bitcoin, an innovative alternative to modern-day fiat currency. As Bitcoin increases in popularity, the candidates harm nobody but themselves when they ignore it.

For those unaware, fiat currency is the currency which is printed and minted by a country's government. This would include the Euro, the US, Canadian, and Australian Dollar, and the British pound. Fiat currencies are simply printed, and cannot be exchanged for their equivalent in precious metals, such as gold, silver, or platinum. Many economists point out that the oversupply of fiat currency leads to inflation, allowing governments to subtly manipulate prices. Bitcoin was created to solve this problem. It's an algorithm that cannot be counterfeited, and no more than 21 million can be created. Launched back in 2009, its popularity has steadily grown. Though primarily used for online transaction, there is a need for cryptocurrency use in retail in order to adjust to the ever-shifting market. 

Since Bitcoin does not exist in physical form, special hardware is needed to make transactions with it. Netclearance provides everything a business needs to expand its accepted forms of payment to fit the modern world of commerce. Our software is usable by iPhones and Android smartphones, and easily interfaces with existing Bitcoin wallets. We also provide hardware for cash registers and unattended vending, ushering your business into the future, whether you own a convenience store, restaurant, or grocery store.  Contact us today to find the solution that works best for you.