Sometimes you have to look to the past to move forward.
Loop, a new mobile wallet and payment platform created by longtime industry innovators is set to finally provide a solution to the mobile wallet problem.
Loop is currently on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding site, and has reached more than a quarter of its $100,000 goal.
The mobile wallet initiative was founded in partnership by Will Graylin and George Wallner, who are long time payment industry veterans. They have each pioneered some of the most important and widespread technologies available today.
Graylin founded ROAM and WAY, which were the first companies to offer card readers that plugged in to smartphone audio jacks, and the first mobile POS provider, respectively.
Wallner dreamt up the ubiquitous magnetic card swipe readers found in nearly all POS terminals, and was the founder and CEO of POS provider, Hypercom.
It’s no surprise their new Loop mobile wallet is based on the technologies that they’ve helped to pioneer.
Loop is both a software and hardware solution. The software implementation is a fairly standard mobile wallet app that will store payment, gift, ID, receipts, passwords and loyalty cards that will use a PIN code for security.
The real magic happens on the hardware end.
The hardware package features a fob that attaches to the headphone jack of your mobile device, similar to the card reader offerings from Square or PayAnywhere.
The charge case, which will work with the iPhone 5 and 5s will also include a secure chip that stores payment information. The user swipes their card through the fob and it will automatically store payment data to both the fob and the charge case.
The technology behind the checkout process, unlike NFC or QR codes, requires nothing extraneous on the merchant’s end. This is because both the Loop fob and the charge case feature a magnetic induction loop that will transmit payment data directly to the card reader, and Loop claims it will work at 90% of all existing payment terminals.
The customer holds their phone with the attached fob next to the payment terminal’s card reader, and the transaction will be completed. iPhone 5 and 5s with the attached case can be used separately from the Loop fob.
If it gets funded (which it is on track to do), Loop may be the one mobile wallet solution to finally scratch the credit card swipe itch of American consumers.
