quipping mobile businesses-pizza delivery drivers, plumbers, limo services and messengers-with point-of-sale card devices could dramatically boost transaction volumes that move through credit and debit card networks. Trouble is, terminals developed for this market segment are bulky, costly and often provide limited geographic coverage.

Now there's a new terminal on the market that promises to overcome these shortcomings: the Mobile Transaction Terminal (MTT) from WAY Systems Inc.

WAY Systems is billing MTT as "the first 'out-of-the-box' packaged solution" to equip mobile merchants with cheap, secure pocket terminals. To date, only a few hundred of these payment terminals have been placed, but WAY Systems executives are optimistic that the boom in inexpensive mobile telephone and network technologies can only spell success for MTT.

Apparently they aren't alone. Will Graylin, the company's CEO, told us during a recent interview that WAY Systems has garnered an impressive array of backers, including Transaction Network Services Inc. (TNS), which provides data networks for many of the nation's best known transaction processors.

In May, TNS purchased the wireless POS application platform developed by U.S. Wireless Data Corp., a pioneer in the mobile POS business that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March. (WAY Systems, meanwhile, picked up a key executive from U.S. Wireless; Mark Shultz is now serving as WAY Systems' Vice President for Sales.)

WAY Systems also has a "strategic alliance" with Visa, Graylin said, under which it is helping the Card Association identify opportunities for growing the market for wireless POS applications.

And in April, the company announced an alliance with SecurePay.com Inc., a highly secure payments gateway that supports access to major transaction processing companies, including Vital Processing Services, Nova Information Systems Inc. and BuyPass/Concord EFS.

"We believe we are at a turning point in this market," said Graylin. "The technology and the price points make for a good merchant ROI. Plus, there's the convenience factor."

Today, fewer than 100,000 merchants use wireless POS terminals, and most of these are bulky, reconfigured countertop devices with limited geographic reach. WAY Systems is betting that the base of wireless terminals will triple in the next three years in the United States, however, with the takeoff of GPRS and the next generation of wireless technologies.

(GPRS stands for General Packet Radio Services. It's a "packet-based" service, which promises faster transmission rates and wide geographic coverage.)

The MTT solution uses a cellular device that really isn't intended to be used as a telephone (although conceivably it could) fashioned with a special patented port. "It literally fits in your shirt pocket," said Graylin.

MTT incorporates a PIN pad, card swipe and mobile thermal printer. The package comes with a low-cost wireless "data-only" plan and real-time merchant processing using SecurePay. Graylin told us a merchant can have the device in hand and operational within 24-48 hours of ordering.

"We have access to all the major processors, and we offer a compelling and competitively priced product," Graylin said, claiming that MTT is priced at half the cost of previous wireless terminals, "and it's a fraction of the size."

Graylin told us that WAY Systems intends to help terminalize those businesses that traditionally have not accepted card payments.

This is a market he estimates to include more than 10 million merchants that don't operate from fixed locales. In the United States, these include about 400,000 taxi and limo services, 350,000 electricians, 450,000 plumbers and literally millions of flea market, food delivery and direct sales businesses, according to Graylin's estimates.

Graylin said he has high expectations for selling MTT outside the United States, as well, particularly in developing countries. Originally from China, he has an impressive background education and work experience here; he was the first Chinese immigrant to serve as an officer in the U.S. Navy's prestigious nuclear submarine program. Graylin is currently negotiating to sell MTT in China; the terminal is already certified for sale and implementation in Malaysia, he said.

Find out more by visiting their Web site, www.waysystems.com.