View PDF of this issue - The Green Sheet

37
CompanyProfile
mPayy Inc.
ISO/MLS contact:
Kimberley Lewis
Vice President, Business Development
Phone: 312-346-2421, 847-531-6366
E-mail: klewis@mpayy.com
Company address:
101 N. Wacker Drive
Chicago, Ill. 60606
Phone: 312-346-7090
Web site: www.mpayy.com
ISO/MLS benefits:
• Mobile payment specialists
• In-house proprietary debit processing platform
• Security and anti-fraud experts
• Developing ISO reseller channel partnerships
• Recurring and subscription billing, P2P, and
micropayment services
Mobile payments,
viable alternatives
It is ironic that the United States, a leader in technological innovation,
is lagging behind much of the rest of the world (especially in the
Asia-Pacific and European markets) in the adoption of mobile payment
technology.
This circumstance is due mainly to the success of telecommunications technology
deployed across the nation in the latter part of the 20th century. Because of
its efficiency over the past 30 years, the telecom industry has inhibited mobile
payment application development in the United States in the last decade.
But Conrad Sheehan, founder and Chief Executive Officer of mobile and alternative
payment solutions provider mPayy Inc., has spent the last three years
determined to change the U.S. mobile payment landscape. Sheehan founded
mPayy in 2007 when he saw the alternative payment and smart phone worlds
expanding simultaneously, but no "real players" in the payments industry to
bring these technologies together.
"Prior to founding mPayy, I was an SVP [Senior Vice President] responsible for
the consumer payments business at JPMorgan that included all paper-based
and electronic payment systems outside of credit cards," Sheehan said.
"So we had our ACH [automated clearing house], retail lockbox and check
conversion products, and the knowledge I gained there was invaluable for a
young executive at the time.
"My experience at JPMorgan gave me an early foundation with creating companies
and commercializing payment products. So when the opportunity and
the idea started to come together around an alternative payment network that
didn't use Visa or MasterCard, it was actually at the same time that the first
uptick was beginning with smart phones, the early BlackBerrys and the first
spots of the 3G network."
New trails, new trials
Sheehan said mPayy is developing and deploying new mobile and alternative
payment solutions in a market that has seen limited movement in the United
States. He added that payment and other financial organizations have talked
about implementing mobile payment technology for a long time, but no one
has really figured out a way to do it securely, easily and cost-effectively.
What Sheehan found was a patchwork of payment networks and inadequate
solutions that were not secure; for the most part, systems were too complex to
use for both merchants and consumers.
"The networks didn't communicate the same exact way across different
systems, even within the same bank, much less across huge acquirers and issuers,"
Sheehan said. "What inspired me to start mPayy was the desire to fill a
gap that was missing for an easier, simpler payment system for e-commerce
that could work on the Web and on today's phones – as well as tomorrow's
future devices."