Mobile Cash Collection: Partnership between AT&T and Intuit
- AT&T proposes Intuit’s GoPayment including a mobile app and a card reader to respond to small companies’ need for mobile cash collection solutions.
- AT&T reminds the Yankee Group’s assessments that the value of mobile transactions worldwide should go up from 241 billion dollars in 2011 to more than 1,000 billion in 2015 (56% increase every year).
- Intuit intends to convince small merchants who already use its accounting software, QuickBooks and propose to synch GoPayment transactions.
- Two versions are currently proposed: a free one (except for the 2.7% charges +15 cents per transactions); and a charged one, recommended for companies processing over 1,000 dollars in transactions per months (12.95 dollars per months and 1.7% card fee +30 cents per transaction). The monthly charge will be added to AT&T’s bill.
- This partnership coincides with Square’s recent announcements regarding its enhanced mobile payment solutions (geofencing features added to Card Case – see "M-payment: Square Making Card Case Evolve"). The number of players trying to have a share in this sector is constantly increasing, as the market is still being structured around the customers’ real needs.
- It should be reminded that most of the proposed mobile devises are designed for magnetic stripe cards: this may be irrelevant in a EU-wide expansion context, where all developers are focusing on smart card-based solutions (as iZettle for example). Nevertheless, Square may be planning to set foot on the EU market in 2012; this may suggest that the US player may have managed to adapt its readers accordingly (see August 2011 Insight).