[July 16, 2014]

mPOS Tracker: July 2014 Report Bridges mPOS with Omnichannel

PYMNTS.com has released the July 2014 issue of the mPOS Tracker, a PYMNTS Special Report sponsored by ROAM. In the report, PYMNTS ranks the players it tracks, scoring them based on numbers and types of devices used, geographies where solutions are implemented, the number of payment types accepted, and more.

This month's report highlights a recent study of small businesses in the UK that shows that only 2 percent of micro-merchants in the UK use mPOS to accept payments. Even SMBs in fast food, specialty retail, and food service sectors with fewer than 9 employees say that they have not embraced mPOS - and 45 percent of these SMBs identify cash flow as the biggest barrier to growth. While payment acceptance is important in helping SMBs grow, other capabilities like CRM, inventory management, marketing and promotional campaign plug-ins and more are also essential to ensuring their business runs efficiently and effectively.

Omnichannel is also enabled by mPOS, and continues to be a top focus among most retailers even though 78 percent of them believe that they lack the capabilities to support omnichannel today. But some retailers like UnderArmour are experimenting with mPOS to enable "checkout" anywhere in the store just before the back-to-school.

Those who scored the highest this month were those whose platforms enable a variety of capabilities and functionalities - they have the greatest ability to support many retailers and fully monetize the mPOS ecosystem. Those players are PayPal (News - Alert) Here, Kalixa Pro, Go Pago, Flint, Payleven, Vexilor from Givex, CreditCall, and ROAM. We also saw five new players join the mPOS pyramid: Epic, Netswipe, Paymax, Sacombank, and Sr. Pago.

Key takeaways for July 2014 include:

1) No more one-trick mPOS Ponies. All merchants, eve SMBs want mPOS solutions to do more for them than enable card payments.

2) mPOS is a bridge to omnichannel. As retailers enable sales associates to interact with customers anywhere in store, and over time, will enable them to serve up personalized experiences and even recognize loyal/preferred customers in store.

3) Focus on emerging markets. As issuers push to expand card acceptance in emerging markets, like the Philippines and Vietnam, mPOS players are riding their draft to enable card acceptance via the mobile device.

The MPOS Tracker™, produced by PYMNTs.com and sponsored by ROAM, organizes the ecosystem into two broad categories: those merchant-facing organizations who supply devices to merchants directly and those who "power" those players and supply them with the mPOS hardware, software, tools and services. Updates related to the player profiles and capabilities are welcome and should be directed to: [email protected]

Download the full July 2014 report here.

About PYMNTS.com

PYMNTS.com is reinventing the way in which companies in payments share relevant information about the initiatives that shape the future of payments and commerce and make news.

This powerful B2B platform is the #1 site for the payments and broader commerce ecosystem by traffic and the premier source of information about "what's next" in payments. C-suite and VP level executives turn to it daily for these insights, making the PYMNTS.com audience the most valuable in the industry. It provides an interactive platform for companies to demonstrate thought leadership, popularize products and, most importantly, capture the mindshare of global decision-makers. PYMNTS.com …. where the best minds and best content meet on the web to learn "What's Next" in Payments and Commerce.

About ROAM

ROAM™, an Ingenico company, helps merchants get to market quickly with secure, cost effective and powerful mobile point of sale solutions, regardless of the technology environment. ROAM's "powered by" mCommerce platform provides the hardware peripherals, applications, tools and services enabling companies worldwide to realize the benefits of using mobile to reinvent their interactions with their customers and to create new business efficiencies. Founded in 2005, ROAM is a pioneer in the mobile POS space, having produced and distributed the industry's first secure mobile card reader and today powers mobile point of sale solutions for many of the leading companies in this market, globally. For more information, visit www.roamdata.com.

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