NTrust, a Vancouver company known for its cloud wallet and money transfer platform, has announced a partnership with U.S. micro-location beacon developer Estimote to develop a new mobile payment method that allows shoppers to browse items and make purchases with their mobile phone when near a beacon.
Rod Hsu, CEO of nTrust, said the company's application can be used by any nTrust customer and works when a Bluetooth Smart beacon placed in a retail location is close enough to interact with the user's phone.
“If a user who's part of nTrust has the app open and they walk into a merchant shop that has Estimote and is currently supporting it, it will pick it up right within the app and we can [display] almost anything [for] them,” Hsu said. “Instantly they can connect with that merchant by paying them or viewing an offer that they potentially have.”
Estimote is a developer of small, programmable “motes” – beacons that transmit radio signals to cellphones within a short radius. The beacons use Bluetooth Smart technology, which is a low-energy variant of Bluetooth.
“It's seamless,” Hsu said. “It's very fluid. You don't always have to line up for a cash register. You can make a purchase right on the spot; if you're purchasing jeans, you can do that and walk out.”
NTrust is currently in talks with local food trucks, and in June the company hopes to deploy an initial run for upcoming food festivals such as Food Cart Fest.
Wayne Hunter is the owner of Blue Smoke BBQ, a popular southern-style food cart in the city. He uses a payment solution known as Square, a small device that plugs into a phone's audio port and acts as a mobile card reader.
“I am so happy with this thing, it's unbelievable,” Hunter said of Square. “You pay 2.75% for anything that you process, but that's way cheaper than a lost sale. It's very quick, very convenient.”
NTrust hopes to find success in bringing on merchants by offering lower processing fees for transactions than those typical of credit card companies, banks and competing products such as Square. Merchants usually pay between 2.5% and 3% for traditional credit card processing as a base fee, but nTrust charges a 1% flat fee on purchases.
“From a consumer standpoint, for every purchase that's made with a merchant that gets the 1% processing charge, 25% of that actually goes to a charity of the consumer's choice,” Hsu added, as part of an ethical payment initiative nTrust is rolling out. “That's something we've been actively working on, and it will provide benefits on both sides.”
Hunter said he likes the convenience of Square but he'd also be willing to embrace technology that would let customers make purchases from their phones and avoid lines.
“On Friday nights we have the Friday night market over on the North Shore,” Hunter said. “There'll be 20 food trucks over there and the lineups will be 50 to 100 deep, so typically what you do is you have a runner out there giving out free samples, taking orders and running back to the service window.
“If they can walk around with a tablet and receive the orders and collect the money and give out free food – I'm all ears.”
“It's still really preliminary, but there's a lot of positive feedback so far,” said Hsu. “We hope there will be a lot of interest.”
