North American Bancard

PayAnywhere's retail rollout, acquirer opportunity

This story originally appeared in The Green Sheet Issue 121201 on December 10, 2012.

PayAnywhere, North American Bancard's mobile POS solution, launched a nationwide retail channel Nov. 19, 2012. The credit card reader and mobile payments software is now sold by some of the nation's largest retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Sam's Club and The Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., among others.

Marc Gardner, NAB and PayAnywhere founder and Chief Executive Officer, said the PayAnywhere solution is "the only mobile POS choice for real businesses" because it is "designed to support the needs of real businesses from the moment a sale begins to when the money is deposited in the bank, and everything in between."

The PayAnywhere solution uses a credit card reader in the form of a dongle that attaches to a mobile device through the head-phone portal. It is similar in this way to the card acceptance solution offered by Square Inc., and others. However, Gardner believes PayAnywhere's live 24/7 customer and technical support, along with its comprehensive business intelligence, gives his company an edge over competing mobile POS solutions.

A tool for contractors

Gardner is particularly pleased with Home Depot's decision to feature PayAnywhere at the Pro Desk in its stores. "Home Depot saw the value added between us and Square and decided to put us on the contractor's desk," he said, noting that this decision is significant because it enables PayAnywhere professional contractors. The CEO envisions plumbers, landscapers and other professional contractors will prefer the PayAnywhere solution over continuing to rely on traditional bill-and-collect payment systems because PayAnywhere allows contractors to get paid more quickly.

Traditional merchants get their money faster through PayAnywhere, too, Gardner added. "Holding money is one of the challenges for SMBs," he said. "That is tough on a business that needs to make payroll every Friday."

More than payments

Gardner believes PayAnywhere comes out on top when compared directly with Square for the following reasons:

PayAnywhere works with any Apple Inc. mobile device, Google Inc. Android-based smart phones or tablets, or Research in Motion Ltd. BlackBerry phones. Square works with Apple and Android devices.
PayAnywhere is Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) compliant and has end-to-end encryption. Square said it adheres to the PCI DSS and offers encryption for stored data and public transmission of data.
PayAnywhere has no monthly fees or minimums, and charges 2.69 percent per swipe or 3.49 percent plus $0.19 for keyed transactions. Square charges 2.75 percent per swipe, or 3.5 percent plus $0.15 for manually entered transactions.

PayAnywhere's business intelligence features include real-time reports that display both cash and credit card transactions. Merchants can view sales; refunds; voids; and totals for the day, week or month. The app also offers Heat Maps to show merchants where sales are taking place in their stores. And PayAnywhere helps merchants and contractors by placing converging technologies on a single payment platform.

Support in spades

In Gardner's view, the biggest competitive advantage to PayAnywhere is the way in which the company interacts with its customers. "When neutral retailers evaluated our offering, they thought the way we communicated with merchants is spectacular," he said. PayAnywhere's help desk is available at all times to communicate with customers whether the topic relates to technology, installation or chargebacks, for example, Gardner noted.

"We offer our customers live customer and technical support, because PayAnywhere believes that if a business owner trusts us to process their money, they deserve a person to talk to whenever they require support," he said. The CEO also stated that PayAnywhere is the only organization providing a mobile POS solution through an agent distribution channel. "Our competitors don't offer their solutions to ISOs and agents," he said.