Worldpay Sets Up New Mobile Point-of-Sale System

Worldpay, a major European operation, recently brought a little help for the supply side of the mobile payments equation. The company is working on an “extended trial” of a new mobile point-of-sale (PoS) system based on mobile phones that should deliver a lot of new value for the small business.

Effectively, Worldpay’s new mobile PoS allows most any merchant to turn a mobile phone—which most people carry with them habitually these days anyway—into a complete mobile PoS terminal. Just download a simple app, and that’s all it takes to start handling several breeds of mobile payments, from the standard phone-based systems to the contactless card system.

Best of all, it doesn’t even require an additional dongle or similar equipment; it works with the device’s near-field communications (NFC) chip and the like. The early trials will be comparatively simple, bringing in 50 businesses in the London area, and running for six months total. Following the trial, Worldpay will then determine if it’s time to go wider or if it’s not working as it would like.

The big draw for something like this would be merchants that can’t currently afford complete PoS solutions yet want access to the flexibility and customer appeal that such products provide. Given that better than half the small businesses in the UK don’t have card readers and better than half—57 percent—of Square’s clients are working with annual incomes below $125,000, it’s a market that’s clearly eager for solutions.

When businesses can offer more options for customers, the chances of customers returning is much higher than without the options. Customers expect that their card will be accepted, and though there are plenty of options for mobile PoS systems already, there’s always room for another active competitor. Competitors keep everyone on their toes and producing the best results for the customer.

Worldpay has a great potential here to be one of the biggest providers in the UK, and given how much of the field is currently without card capability of any sort, it should be a fertile market ready to take advantage of a mobile PoS system so easy to use that it requires no more equipment than is already built into the phone itself.