Mobile Merchant Account Processing

Cash payments have fallen out of favor, making up only 12% of transactions in the U.S. in 2020. The global COVID-19 pandemic has driven that down even further as health-conscious consumers have flocked to contactless payments. With card payments now the standard, even the smallest merchants need to find ways to move away from cash to stay relevant. Mobile payment systems are one of the easiest and most flexible ways to do that, making a mobile merchant account a key to ensuring your business is ready to provide your customers with the payment methods they prefer and, increasingly, demand. 

A mobile merchant account also enables you to move sales away from the front counter to meet your customers where they are, whether it’s somewhere else in your store, in the parking lot for a curbside pickup order, or even in the field. The ability to take payments on the move improves the customer experience and offers the added convenience necessary to keep customers coming in the front door, and with online sales increasingly encroaching on brick and mortar sales, maintaining that in-person convenience is invaluable to creating a strong, balanced omnichannel business.

Choosing a Mobile Merchant Account

With mobile transactions playing such an important role in today’s sales environments, choosing the right mobile merchant account is an important decision that can’t be taken lightly. The following represent some of the most important features you should look for when shopping around, and making sure your mobile merchant account offers each will ensure maximum value and maximum utility to your business and your customers. 

Mobile Merchant Account Feature: Smartphone-Integrated Payment Hardware

A good mobile merchant account should offer standard and EMV-compliant smartphone readers at an absolute minimum. Smartphone-based payment hardware enables you to turn any mobile device with a 3.5mm headphone jack or Lightning port into a convenient payment system that can be deployed anywhere mobile data or a Wi-Fi signal is available. 

Smartphone card readers plug into a device and then allow payments to be taken through an app-based point-of-sale system, either through a swipe and on-screen signature or a quick tap for EMV-compliant systems. The small size, low cost, and ease of use make smartphone payment systems ideal for small and hobby businesses without the need for a large, expensive POS system. They’re also a powerful way to enable your sales team to make sales and take payments from the field, whether that means a flea market, a client’s offices, or anywhere in between. 

Mobile Merchant Account Feature: Mobile Point-of-Sale Systems

Mobile point of sale systems fall somewhere in between smartphone card readers and standard fixed POS systems. They represent an ideal solution for businesses like restaurants that want to untether payments from the counter, but need a more robust system than a smartphone app. Most mobile POS systems utilize tablets — either proprietary hardware or Apple or Android-based systems — that tie in wirelessly with a master POS system located at the primary checkout. 

If your mobile merchant account integrates with top mobile point-of-sale systems, you can turn your entire location into a checkout, providing customers with conveniences like at-table ordering and payment, while also minimizing bottlenecks and long lines in retail environments. 

Mobile Merchant Account Feature: Interchange-Plus Pricing

While not a mobile-specific feature, choosing a mobile merchant account with a favorable fee structure ensures that offering your customers flexible mobile payments won’t result in your profits being chipped away one transaction at a time. 

A mobile merchant account with an interchange-plus pricing structure, like the mobile accounts offered by BAMS, ensures transaction fees will always be as low as possible by dynamically adjusting them based on the actual interchange rates charged by the banks. The result is fees as much as a full percent lower than those offered by flat and tiered rate structures. 

BAMS mobile merchant accounts offer both interchange-plus pricing and a full line of mobile payment hardware. We also offer dedicated merchant support from the most knowledgeable and experienced team in the industry. To find out more about everything a BAMS mobile merchant account can do for your business, start your free five-point price comparison today.