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Mobile point-of-sale payment provider Apriva marked $9.55 billion in transactions through its payment gateway in 2013, a 17.3% increase from $8.14 billion in 2012, fueled by growth in mobile payment acceptance, cashless vending, and its gateway service.
Mobile POS payments, in particular, saw exceptional growth in 2013 versus 2012. Apriva would not provide specific figures for its mobile POS payments volume, but says the total increased 300% last year over the prior year.
In addition to a mobile wallet and wireless POS terminals, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company also offers AprivaPay Plus, its mobile POS products for smart phones and tablets. Currently, two major banks use that product under their own brands, says Chris Spinella, Apriva chief executive, with 15 others selling the product under the private-label brands of Apriva resellers.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth with AprivaPay Plus,” Spinella says. “That is primarily driven by our strategy of letting banks and financial institutions label our product.” Many banks already have relationships with merchants and have a trusted brand name, he says.
Apriva also sells the service through approximately 900 merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations, Spinella says.
Cashless-vending transaction volume also steadily increased in 2013, Spinella says. He would not disclose those figures. Currently, Apriva provides cashless vending services at approximately 250 college campuses in the United States and Canada.
In April, Apriva expects to unveil an independent software vendor program that will provide developers with more than 30 payment providers via Apriva’s gateway, he says.
The growth is likely to continue for Apriva and other mobile payment providers, says Mary Monahan, executive vice president and research director for mobile at payments research firm Javelin Strategy & Research, Pleasanton, Calif.
“Mobile payments are growing fast, but they still have vast room to expand because the marketplace is so broad,” Monahan. “Among U.S. consumers, just one in four has made a contactless mobile payment ever. On the merchant side, the majority of merchants have not adopted mobile POS yet,” speaking of a merchant accepting a card payment using a dongle and a mobile device such as a mobile phone or a tablet.
She says that mobile POS is unusual because it started at the microbusiness level, with annual sales up to $1 million, and then moved upstream to larger businesses. There is a much higher penetration among microbusinesses than among small business—with annual sales between $1 million and $10 million—but even so it is below one in every six microbusinesses, leaving much room for future growth, Monahan says.
