14 DAY TRIAL // On Wednesday, wireless carrier AT&T announced that it joined forces with leading provider of solutions for the wireless payment industry Apriva for the delivery of new mobile payment software solutions that would enhance productivity and cash flow for small business customers. The two new solutions, including AprivaPay and AprivaPay Professional, have been designed to transform any smartphone in a point-of-sale device that can accept various payment transactions.
According to AT&T, it is the first wireless carrier in the country to offer mobile point-of-sale solutions from Apriva. These solutions offer small businesses the possibility to tap into the growth the market of mobile payments is expected to register. According to Generator Research, an independent market research firm, this market should top $600 billion by 2014, up from only $68 billion in 2009. Basically, mobile payments should register a growth of around 50 percent each year over the next five years.
“Sales increase when small businesses accept payment cards,” said Michael Antieri, president, advanced enterprise mobility solutions, AT&T Business Solutions. “And given that an overwhelming majority of small businesses use smartphones, offering a mobile application that ties together payment cards and smartphones makes perfect sense. By offering these new mobile applications from Apriva, AT&T is helping small businesses create ‘virtual storefronts’ in the field, enhancing cash flow while minimizing back office processes such as billing.”
AprivaPay comes to AT&T's customers as a browser-based application that can offer businesses the possibility to process credit and debit transactions straight from the browser on their mobile phones. As for AprivaPay Professional, it is a full featured application available for download on smartphones. The service also includes the option to integrate a card reader and a receipt printer. Additional details on AprivaPay and AprivaPay Professional from AT&T are available on the carrier's website here.
“Small and medium businesses interested in learning more about AprivaPay from AT&T and other mobile applications can visit the Small Business Mobile Application Recommender Tool (SMART) at www.att.com/SMART to identify which mobile application is right for their business. AT&T has added AprivaPay to its portfolio of AT&T mobile applications and authorized users can conveniently purchase it directly from AT&T via this online self-service tool,” the wireless carrier announced.