How FIS is Simplifying Mobile Payments

FIS is on a quest to build better mobile payments.

One of the leaders in payment solutions, it has its fingers in everything payments and is driving mobile solutions for all players in every side of the transaction.

By building out and giving the option to white-label their platforms for financial institutions, merchants, and consumers, they hope to become one of the main drivers of mobile payments engagement.

Doug Brown, SVP and General Manager of FIS’s mobile business, and formerly of the FIS acquired mFoundry, gave us a breakdown of some critical points in spearheading an accessible mobile wallet platform.

Brown told me that one of the most important pieces of their mobile platform was the leveraging of the cloud to ensure security, and the enablement of the new software-as-a-service model.

Brown said that the issue of consumer adoption of mobile payments was a major hurdle.

By providing a mobile solution to how consumers interact with their money, which is usually through online banking and ATM access, FIS can then link that back to making the consumer’s mobile device sticky enough to have them pay with their phones.

Cardless Cash is a feature in the FIS mobile wallet platform that demonstrates the company’s design philosophy.

Cardless Cash Access enables ATM users to withdraw their money without need for a bankcard. This mitigates the chances of falling victim to card skimmers.

It’s a simple ATM software upgrade compatible with Windows XP and above.

More importantly, it’s technology agnostic, meaning it can work with QR codes, NFC, or whatever future transaction method pops up since everything is software-based.

On the merchant and consumer side, FIS has partnered with the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a retail alliance, to provide a mobile payments solution that will try to mobilize a part of the 30 percent of consumer spending volume that they have through non-mobile channels.

Transactions of payment details take place in the cloud again to provide piece of mind, and removes most of the friction for retailers by having the acceptance portion of mobile payments reduced down to a software rather than hardware upgrade for most POS of systems.

Accessibility and cost are some of the major friction points in introducing mobile solutions, and while the numbers aren’t quite there yet on the consumer side, financial institutions and merchants are taking notice of what FIS has to offer.