Verifone has signed an agreement with Danish mobile payment app Swipp to integrate Swipp as an accepted payment method for Danish merchants using Verifone devices.
The Swipp app, whose development has been supported by more than 70 Danish banks, relies on account-to-account payments with low transaction costs, no intermediaries and no risk of the payment not getting through to the merchant.
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The service, which is based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, will allow contactless payment from all phones with Swipp.
Verifone said that the user experience will be very similar to that of NFC payments – users will need to just tap the phone in front of the terminal and swipe the app for approval.
The service is set to be live at a number of joint clients from December 2015. The solution will be available for both the stand-alone terminals in the SME market as well as the larger retailers with ECR-integrated terminals, Verifone revealed.
Swipp chief commercial officer Peter Bredgaard said: "The Danes are very eager to be able to pay via their phones, and this is a genuine game changer in mobile payments in Denmark.
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By GlobalData"Merchants will experience an easy path to mobile payment as this only requires a minor upgrade of already installed Verifone terminals. They avoid extra devices in stores and all the cost and complexity associated with new hardware. As such it is by far the most cost-effective and fastest implementation of integrated mobile payment services you can embark on as a retail company in Denmark."
Verifone Europe president June Felix said: "We see it as a truly future-proof approach to mobile payment where the payment terminal is the focal point in the physical store. Verifone opens up Bluetooth Low Energy communication as a supplement to already active EMV and NFC capabilities, and this allows the merchant to integrate new methods of payment without spending time and money on software integration with a number of different payment solutions."
The deal is expected to allow over 800,000 Danes who currently use Swipp to use mobile payments to pay for their goods in store on a day to day basis. Currently, over 50% of all terminals in Denmark are supplied by Verifone.
