| New mobile payment service eschews cash and checks for phones
Mpayy Inc., an online and mobile payment processing company, will launch tomorrow a service that enables merchants and shoppers to conduct retail transactions using mobile phones and online payment accounts. Shoppers can use the Mpayy service with roving salespersons or on retail web sites. Merchants set up accounts on Mpayy.com to establish a mobile payment system. Mobile merchantsMpayy is not yet targeting bricks-and-mortar retailerscan access reports on sales, send funds to desired banks, manage refunds and perform other tasks through a web-enabled administrative application. Shoppers set up accounts on the Mpayy site, entering their mobile phone number, account nickname, and checking account information. To conduct a transaction with a roving merchantan Avon lady, for examplea shopper logs in to Mpayys mobile web site and enters the merchants mobile phone number or nickname, enters the amount of the purchase, and submits the information, which brings up a transaction confirmation page with a Pay button to complete the purchase.
Cards: Opportunities Abound In Crowded Payments Field
In the course of a decade, card-based payments have doubled in volume to account for 28 percent of all consumer payments. It's nearly half of the payments pie when excluding the amount spent on auto loans, mortgages and other debt vehicles unsuitable for cards. Credit or debit card use at the point of sale represents 56 percent of all purchases, interchange now accounts for 19 percent of issuers' revenues, and the number of card-accepting merchants now tops 6.1 million. It's obvious that consumers are comfortable swiping cards for groceries, utility bills, morning coffee and hamburgers. But as Celent notes in a new report on payment trends, cards are not close to conquering cash and checks: cards' growth market is $4.5 trillion. Much of that growth is going to be fueled by evolving trends in consumer behavior, added merchant choices and technology, as bank issuers seek innovative ways of building and retaining card customers whose average cost of acquisition is between $50 and $300.
Pregame show
He also has served as coordinator of the college's writing program; director of the honors program; and editor of The Sextant, a publication of faculty research. His collection of short stories, "Off in Zimbabwe," won the prize for fiction from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. IN LOCAL GALLERIES: Zumi's Expresso & Ice Cream in Ipswich marks its fifth anniversary with a show of new paintings by Julia Purinton, opening tomorrow and running through February. The large-scale paintings celebrate the beauty and transience of the natural world, and reflect the artist's interest in mood and memory. Since its opening, Zumi's has offered exhibition space in the café to local artists. "Nara to Nantucket," an exhibit of photographs by Steve Fulghum, opens at the Marblehead Arts Association from 2 to 4 p.m.
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