31 January 2014 12:12

"Mintegrate Developer Program"

Mint Wireless launches "Mintegrate" Developer Platform for mobile payments
Mint Wireless introduces SDKs and APIs for mobile payments integration
31 January 2014: Mint Wireless (ASX:MNW) (“Mint Wireless”) today announced the availability of Mintegrate, a simple yet powerful platform to support developers who are looking to integrate mobile payments into mobile applications. The solution comprises of free Software Developer Kits (SDKs) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to support iOS and Android mobile Point-of-Sale (mPOS) transactions.

Mintegrate targets developers building mobile applications for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are increasingly shifting towards mPOS services to collect payments using tablets and smartphones. There are over two million SMEs representing almost 96 percent of the Australian businesses (Source: ABS). With the launch of Mintegrate, Mint Wireless aims to grow its mPOS market share through SMEs.

Mintegrate was developed to support the growing demand for mobile payment solutions and the need to support developers who want to easily integrate this within applications. This trend has been highlighted by James Wester, Research Director-Global Payments, IDC Financial Insights in an interview with Mobile Payments Today.

Alex Teoh, CEO of Mint Wireless said, “Mintegrate offers Australia’s first simple yet powerful mobile payments integration for developers. Having developed mobile payment solutions for the market since 2007, Mint Wireless has built on our experience and heritage to deliver a bank-grade and industry compliant solution that will exceed the expectations of developers, their customers and end users.”

“Through Mintegrate, we have simplified the pricing structure for any mobile or retail business that accepts card payments. In addition, we have provided a recurring revenue stream to developers who are looking to integrate our solution in their client’s mobile applications.”

Mintegrate offers a competitive pricing structure that scales with the growth of any business. Some of the key features in Mintegrate include:

• Pricing packages that are based on the volume of transactions with no set up fee and a standard transaction fee across all card types.
  
• A simplified merchant on-boarding process that allows customers to settle their transactions into any Australian bank account.
  
• An affordable card reader that works on both iOS and Android platforms enabling merchants to take card payments through smartphones and tablets.
  

Mint Wireless will provide developers with a 10 percent commission on each transaction initiated through the application.

Mint Wireless estimates the estimated value of mPOS transactions in Australia will reach US$7 billion in 2014 with the potential to grow to US$20 billion in 2016.

ENDS

About Mint Wireless Limited

Mint Wireless Limited is a global mobile payments and transactions processing company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: MNW). Mint Wireless has a mobile payments technology platform that enables corporate enterprises to accept credit and debit card payments on various mobile phones, tablets and mobile devices. The Company has invested and built bank grade payments technology and infrastructure that has allowed it to become a multi-channel and multi-national payments organisation. Mint Wireless is headquartered in Sydney, Australia with offices and operations in London and Singapore. Mint Wireless has won many hardware and software awards including Microsoft and IBM’s Consensus Awards in 2008. In 2009, Mint Wireless was recognised as one of Australia’s best performing small-to-medium companies, ranking 4th in the BRW Fast 100 awards, and ranking 5th in the SmartCompany.com.au Smart 50 awards.

“Technology is being used to boost profit margins, improve service levels and help gain a competitive advantage by minimising labour costs, reducing food waste, improving business processes and improving meal experiences. ” – Reference: IBISWorld 2013, Cafes and Restaurants in Australia.

Let’s face it: running a café is never easy. Making money from a café is even harder. With many new cafés opening weekly, the market is becoming increasingly saturated and competition is fierce. Take where I work as an example – in a business district within the lower north shore of Sydney. You can easily walk past two handfuls of cafés within a few minutes’ walk. Competition is so intense, that cafés often have to engage in price war tactics to compete for customers. To me, this ultimately is not sustainable in the long run.

Unfortunately, just being able to make good coffee is not enough to win new customers, let alone keep existing customers loyal. There are many factors that directly contribute to the long term success of a café, such as location, quality of food, ambience and service, to name a few. In this article, we will discuss how technology can easily give your café the upper hand and boost profitability by:

• Reducing labour costs
• Improving customer service
• Maximising efficiency in the business
• Increasing customer loyalty and retention


HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY HELP?Technology can help café operators in many areas of the business. Applying the right ones and using them wisely can give you the advantage over your competitors. Below are some suggestions:

Payment technologies – accept fast cashless payment methods such as MasterCard PayPass and Visa payWave. Speedy payments and spending less time providing change will allow cashiers to attend to the next customers more quickly, ensuring a positive customer experience in your café. Furthermore, spending less time counting till money and going to the bank will help reduce labour and administration costs. If you utilise a Point of Sales (POS) system, make sure you have payments and POS system integrated so that you don’t have to manually key in the amounts. Otherwise, it’ll be counter productive, and you would not have maximised the benefits of your POS system.

Customer profiling – utilising a POS system and innovative payment technologies such as PayPal Checkin is a godsend. PayPal Checkin not only allows you to accept cashless payments, but when combined with spending history stored in the POS system, it will also allow you to better interact with your most loyal customers. Imagine even a new starter at the cashier will know your customers by name and confidently asks, “Good morning, Fred … the usual flat white with one sugar?”

Business Intelligence – if you have never used a POS system before, you may not be aware that a POS system is not just useful for printing receipts. A good POS system should be able to provide you with the right data and intelligence to make informed business decisions. A customer of ours who owns a chain of cafés in the CBD recently told me that they were able to easily adjust staff rosters and operating hours for each individual shop to be more efficient, as they could now accurately identify peak hours for their business using the hourly sales reports from their POS system. They were also able to identify less popular menu items and either removed them from their food menu, or limit the quantity made to reduce food wastage.

Cloud Connectivity – connecting your POS systems to the Cloud is extremely useful. Firstly, if your POS systems support this, you will be able to manage your POS systems remotely anywhere, anytime and conveniently access your reports on the go. Secondly, your business data can be remotely backed up to the Cloud so that in an unforeseen event of something going wrong with the POS system, you will still have a copy of your data safely stored. Furthermore, if you run a multi-site operation, Cloud connectivity will allow you to easily synchronise your staff logins, menu items, price changes, and customer details across multiple stores.

SELF ASSESSMENT• Do you have a loyalty program to attract new and repeating customers?

• Do you address your customers by name?

• Do you know what your customers usually order?

• How much time do you use to count daily cash takings?

• Do you have an integrated payment solution for a speedy service?

• Do you know the peak hours of your business?

• Do you know which items are selling and not selling?

• Are you able change menu items and pricing with ease?

• Do you monitor food wastage?

For a free consultation, call ViViPOS on 1300 736 119 or visit www.vivipos.com.au

ViViPOS is a revolutionary purpose-built point of sales (POS) platform. With a presence in major cities worldwide, ViViPOS is renowned globally for its innovative features, ease of use, reliability and stunning design.

By Dr Fred Yip, VIVIPOS Australia
www.vivipos.com.au