LevelUp partners with T-Mobile to boost mobile payments

Mobile Commerce Industry

Mobile Commerce Industry
Though mobile payments are already starting to make their way into the in-person retail sphere, many do not yet have the smartphones required to implement the technology, so LevelUp and T-Mobile are working together to provide these devices for a monthly fee.

The mainstream is beginning to take notice of the introduction of Google Wallet and other mobile payment services, and it’s becoming more common for people to understand that there are some retailers who will allow them to pay for their purchases by simply waving their mobile phone at a reader device at the cash register.

Though consumers do imagine that this will become much more common in the future, the adoption so far has been quite the struggle. For example, using the Google Wallet is possible only for Sprint customers who have a Nexus S smartphone device. Furthermore, it also requires the retailer making the sale to have a reader device capable of supporting near-field communication (NFC) technology, which remains quite rare.

This is the primary reason that Google’s service, as well as the other largest mobile payment venture, ISIS, which is the joint effort among the top three national wireless carriers, have only just squeaked into the marketplace but haven’t made tremendous headway.

LevelUp, however, intends to change this. It is a pilot program from Scvngr’s social and location based game. Just like its parent, LevelUp was created by Seth Priebatsch. While Scvngr is designed to be a social game available for free, LevelUp was created to encourage the same degree of user engagement, but with the intention to generate income.

According to Priebatsch, “The mechanics that power Scvngr can promote traffic and can be linked to transactions.”

To do this, it has reached its hands into the mobile payment world, and has made efforts including QR codes and easily obtainable apps that can be used by any smartphone and can eliminate the requirement for NFC capabilities at the checkout counter.

The concept is that instead of using a wallet, the consumer uses a smartphone and the LevelUp app. Equally, instead of using a cash register, the clerk can use a store-owned smartphone which also uses that app and scan QR codes in order to initiate an electronic money exchange between the devices.

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