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Intuit partners with AT&T to provide GoPayment mobile POS to small biz customers

Companies to provide automatic sign-up and pre-approval to AT&T merchant customers.

November 6, 2011 by James Wester — Editor 1, Mobile Payments Today

Intuit Inc. is joining with AT&T Inc. to offer GoPayment for AT&T, a new flavor of its small business mobile point-of-sale service aimed at AT&T's customers, the company announced. Along with the mobile application and credit card reader that let small businesses accept credit or debit card payments on a mobile device, GoPayment for AT&T includes automatic signup and pre-approval for the majority of AT&T customers.

"Intuit GoPayment for AT&T comes with automatic pre-approval for AT&T customers, helping small businesses speed up the on-boarding process and enabling them to make credit and debit card transactions within minutes," said Ebrahim Keshavarz, AT&T vice president of Small Business Product Management, in the announcement.

This is the second such deal that Intuit has made with major wireless carrier in the U.S. Intuit announced a similar deal with Verizon Wireless in August.

Like other mobile POS solutions on the market, products like Square and ROAMData's ROAMPay, GoPayment for AT&T is aimed at so-called "micromerchants," small businesses that do most of their business in the field, such as landscaping services or locksmiths.

"By teaming up with AT&T, we're getting GoPayment into the hands of even more small businesses," said Chris Hylen, vice president and general manager of Intuit's Payment Solutions division in the announcement. "Now they too can easily and affordably process credit cards and get paid on the spot, which in this tough economy means increased cash flow and more repeat business."

Intuit said it is already one of the largest small business payments processors in the U.S. It processes nearly $21 billion in transactions annually for approximately 300,000 small businesses through its Intuit Payment Services division.

According to the announcement, the GoPayment application is free along with one free credit card reader. Additionally, Intuit said the basic service offers pay-as-you-go pricing, with no monthly fee, set-up fees, long-term contracts or transaction fees. Instead, merchants pay 2.7 percent for all swiped transactions.

For larger businesses, usually those that process more than $1,000 a month, or that need multiple employees added to a GoPayment account, a monthly service plan, billed directly to a merchant's AT&T bill, costs $12.95 per month but lowers the transaction fee to 1.7 percent.

Merchants can add up to 50 users on one GoPayment merchant account, Intuit said, as well as syncing data to its QuickBooks financial software suite.

Additional benefits of the GoPayment service include sending email receipts to customers and encrypting all data at the card reader and in the application ensuring that customer credit card data is never stored on the phone. 

Intuit said the solution is available through AT&T's nationwide small business sales force and call centers. According to AT&T's Keshavarz, additional small business partnerships between Intuit and AT&T are in the works.

"This offer is just the first step in AT&T and Intuit working together to benefit small businesses by helping them broaden their payment capabilities, save money and, ultimately, better serve their customers," Keshavarz said.

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