Mobile payments platform provider Flint has signed a deal with Fidano, a subsidiary of NXGEN International that provides merchant services.
NXGEN processes more than $5 billion in mobile payments a year.
The deal brings Flint’s patent-pending swipe-free payment technology to Fidano’s network of merchant service providers and financial institutions.
Flint began in 2011 and launched its iPhone app in November 2012. The company aims to ease friction for on-the-go small businesses such as personal trainers or photographers that need to accept credit card or debit payments.
Instead of providing a dongle for swiping, the app take a photo of the 16-digit number on the face of the card, and the merchant or customer enters the rest of the information. Flint presently accepts Visa and Mastercard payments.
The Flint app processes the payment and sends the customer an email receipt. This receipt is a powerful tool for the merchant. For one thing, it provides the merchant with a customer email address, and it also allows the customer to go to the merchant’s Facebook page with a single click and enter feedback. This, says Flint CEO Greg Goldfarb, is a powerful way to bring user-generated activity to a merchant’s social media offerings.
Flint’s fees are 1.95% plus 10 cents for a debit transaction and 2.95% plus 20 cents for a credit transaction.
The app also provides analytics for small business owners to examine a sortable overview of sales and activity, determine their best customers and set up reward and benefit programs, and monitor social media activity.
“We’re focused on local on-the-go service businesses,” said Goldfarb. Other mobile payment providers, he argued, are more focused on “countertop” or in-store solutions. “On-the-go merchants want to use existing tools to engage with customers,” Goldfarb said.
The Flint Mobile Pay app is available on its own or whitelabelled through partners, of which Fidano is the first.