mPOS Tracker™ MAY 2017 Playing With The Band – mPOS And Cashless Concerts How Front Gate Tickets is MSwipe brings in $40 million Find the top providers in the bringing mobile payments in funding round latest Tracker Scorecard to music festivals – p. 8 (News and Trends) – p. 16 – p. 5 (Feature Story) mPOS Tracker™ © 2017 PYMNTS.com all rights reserved Table of Contents PAGE What’s Inside A look at the quickly evolving mPOS space and the latest news on mobile 03 payments providers planning international expansions. PAGE Feature Story Ben Taylor, COO of Front Gate Tickets, on how the company is using mobile 05 payments to bring cashless payments to concerts. PAGE News and Trends 08 The latest headlines and trends from around the mPOS world. PAGE Top 25 Providers | Scorecard The results are in. See this month’s top scorers and a provider directory 15 featuring 271 major players in the space. PAGE About 149 Information on PYMNTS.com mPOS Tracker™ © 2017 PYMNTS.com all rights reserved May 2017 | 2 What’s Inside obile wallets may still be yet to catch on Meanwhile, Australian merchants now have access in the U.S., but many consumers around to NCR’s Silver cloud-based mPOS system. The Mthe world are making the move to these product and its accompanying software are available smartphone-based payment methods. to Australian merchants, via download from the Australian Apple and Android app stores, via a According to recent industry research, despite recent product expansion. The system is aimed at Americans’ super-sized appetite for smartphones helping SMBs accept payments via a mobile device and other mobile devices, mobile wallet providers such as a smartphone or tablet. like Apple Pay say that the majority of their transaction volumes come from consumers outside Similarly, retailers in India may have a new mPOS of America. security tool. Due to a recent collaboration with card payments solution provider MSwipe, MYPINPAD’s With foreign consumers being more open to mobile PIN Entry technology will now be available thanks wallets, it should come as no surprise that mPOS to new demonetization guidelines from the Reserve providers have expanded services to appeal to more Bank of India. The devices, designed to conform to mobile consumers globally. the new rules, will use touchscreens to allow users to enter a PIN number protected via encryption, Here’s a quick snapshot of notable mPOS news without the use of a separate PIN pad. from the past month: Square is bringing mobile payments across the May Tracker updates pond. According to reports, the payments company This issue of the mPOS Tracker features 271 global founded by Jack Dorsey is using the launch of providers in the Scorecard, highlighting players from Square in the U.K. as part of a plan to gain a around the space. Four companies have been added foothold in the mainland European marketplace. It this month to the ever-expanding provider directory: was a busy month for Dorsey’s company, which is Spread Technology, MePOS, Posiflex Technology, also debuting a physical debit card, according to and Retail Store. reports. mPOS Tracker™ © 2017 PYMNTS.com all rights reserved May 2017 | 3 What’s Inside 65 percent 59 percent of surveyed of American retailers describe business owners say mobile payments as the high cost of entry their top priority for is the biggest issue when in-store technology. rolling out new in-store technology. India’s mPOS terminal More than market is 90 percent of projected to North American grow at a CAGR of consumers regularly over 16 percent from shop on multiple 2017 to 2023. channels. Only 13.2 percent of surveyed consumers find shopping in-store more convenient than online. percent from 2016 to 2023. mPOS Tracker™ © 2017 PYMNTS.com all rights reserved May 2017 | 4 FEATURE STORY “...Creating an experience that keeps customers happy through the technology, whether its ticketing, accepting payments or fan engagement.” Ben Taylor, COO of Front Gate Tickets Playing With The Band – mPOS And festival gates, simultaneously enabling attendees Cashless Concerts to pay for food, libations and merchandise while leaving their wallet and paper tickets at home. The band is kicking into overdrive and the crowd Through partnerships with ticket technology is on its feet, going bananas. Your attention drifts providers like Ticketmaster subsidiary Front and panic surges over you for a moment. Instead Gate Tickets, more music festivals are turning to of swaying to the music with thousands of fellow wearables, like wristbands embedded with mobile concertgoers, your heart skips a beat and you pause ticketing and payment technology, simplifying the to pat your pockets or tap your toe on your purse. credentialing and payment process for both vendors They’re still there and your panic dissolves for now, and consumers. but you’ll do this all again – actually, many times— throughout the show. It’s part of the concert-going In a recent interview, Ben Taylor, COO of Front Gate routine. Tickets, told PYMNTS that the bracelets, which use RFID technology to communicate with ticketing At major music festivals like Lollapalooza or Austin and payment devices, were first planned for limited City Limits, which attract hundreds of thousands of rollout in 2010 for ticketing and access control music fans for all-day summer lineups, keeping track alone. But, as attendees received the technology of cash and credentials (while achieving musical favorably, Taylor and his team decided to have all liftoff) can be a burden— and pickpockets are partner festivals go paperless, beginning in 2013. notoriously opportunistic. Soon after, they started exploring other uses for the technology, including giving customers the option Increasingly, however, large music and many others to link debit and credit cards to the wristbands, are starting to make use of mPOS technology to enabling payments, which they began rolling out in keep track of who’s coming and going through mPOS Tracker™ © 2017 PYMNTS.com all rights reserved May 2017 | 5 Feature Story 2014. Since then, the technology has really caught on with consumers, according to Taylor. “We’re seeing some very high adoption rates for Under the Hood this technology,” Taylor said. “The festivals do a good job of encouraging people to link their Ben Taylor of Front Gate Tickets payment or other information to the wristbands, on the rise of mobile technology for music festivals. and we’re seeing lots of people sign up for them, and then 100 percent of the people that link Mobile technology has long promised to simplify the payments use it for at least one transaction, so it number of things consumers have to carry and keep seems the fans definitely see a value in the service.” track of – a welcome change for concertgoers and music festival attendees. In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Ben Taylor, COO of Front Gate Tickets, described how mobile technology grew from a limited crowd control experiment to an increasingly We’ve definitely seen this adopted payments and engagement device. technology increase the “Front Gate first started dabbling in RFID technology per person spending... in 2010 a limited release, really just as an access control solution. We saw it as a future endeavor for the music fest which is the primary ticketing place that we live in and it kind of grew from there. There were a couple companies that were offering versions of this Going cashless for more revenue? to the marketplace, but we felt like there were some According to Taylor, the mobile technology isn’t just gaps in what they were doing with it from a reliability standpoint, and that we could help close those gaps a value-add for customer festivals – it’s also a boon with some of our knowledge of the space. for the festivals and vendors that sell goods or services and accept payment via the wristbands. So, initially, we just rolled the technology out as an access control solution and had it fully rolled out by Research shows that customers who use mobile 2013, to replace the barcoded ticket to get people in payments technology to place food orders via the door. Payments came pretty quickly after that. smartphone apps often make larger purchases than those that order in-store – and Taylor said that a Now at festivals like Lollapalooza— it’s a 100 percent similar phenomenon exists among festival fans that paperless festival— everyone from one-day general use the mobile wristbands for payments. admission pass holders, to festival producers just have an RFID credential. And now we have the ability to “I think it’s a bit of cruise ship mentality. It almost use it as more than just a fan control mechanism. In addition to payments, we also have fan engagement doesn’t seem real if you don’t have to pull out your tools we can deploy with the RFID technology cash or credit card until the bill comes due at the to help create an experience with the technology. end,” Taylor explained. “So, we’ve definitely seen And for us, that’s really what it comes down to: this technology increase the per person spending, creating an experience that keeps customers happy and also the number of transactions of people who through the technology, whether its ticketing, opt-in to the mobile payments.” accepting payments or fan engagement.” mPOS Tracker™ © 2017 PYMNTS.com all rights reserved May 2017 | 6 Feature Story And as mobile payment technology becomes more by someone who shouldn’t be getting their hands commonplace— not just at music festivals and on it,” he explained. “We also recognize that during through wearable devices, but also at retail stores a festival it can be kind of easy to lose a wristband and through smartphones— concertgoers have or something like that, so we also require a PIN to become even more willing to spend mobile money, be entered before any payments are accepted, so Taylor noted.