Kyle
Payfirma is an early adopter in the mobile payment space. This Vancouver based startup is credited with being the first company to bring mobile payments to Canada.
Mobile payments are the way of the future, and for many the future is now. In the US we have Square, Paypal, Google Wallet and the forthcoming ISIS available in several mobile platforms for consumers to pay for services and goods.
Like others, Payfirma makes it extremely easy for merchants to take payments from customers in a variety of ways. Payfirma offers an online platform, point of sale software and a mobile app. Payfirma started out in 2011 and quickly became an industry leader in mobile payments. Back in December of last year they had passed the $1 million dollar per day transaction mark, and were already being called the “Square of Canada”.
The company was also named Canada’s best startup in 2011 at the KPMG startup awards. Payfirma has built a US presence as well, opening offices in Chicago and San Francisco.
On the mobile side Payfirma looks a lot like Square or Intuit’s mobile offering with a card swiping dongle that attaches to the top of an iPhone or Blackberry. Information is read from the dongle and transmitted via the smartphone to give merchants the ability to take credit card payments on the go.
Merchants who vend at swap meets, flea markets, craft fairs and other events were often faced with a tough choice. They could either choose not to accept credit cards at all or take them the old fashioned way by hand, for processing later. Processing credit cards by hand and then running them later can easily result in fraudulent sales.
We got a chance to talk with the team behind the award winning Payfirma platform. Check out the interview below: