Article

Meet the NuWallet

Startup NuWallet is pushing a simple message to attract merchants and consumers.

June 27, 2011 by James Wester — Editor 1, Mobile Payments Today

As big payment companies scramble to introduce new mobile wallets to replace the old physical variety, the addition of linked offers, loyalty programs and any number of bells and whistles intended to attract users is threatening to overwhelm the primary purpose of a mobile wallet: paying for stuff. One aptly named mobile payment company is going a slightly different direction.

NuWallet Inc. headquartered in Omaha, Neb., has one simple goal, to be the tool consumers use when making purchases on their mobile phones. The company is avoiding the coming offline mobile payment battle between giants like Google Wallet and the Isis Network and is concentrating strictly on mobile commerce.

"We are looking to become a de facto standard for m-commerce," NuWallet CEO George Hendrix said in a recent interview.

And the way NuWallet plans on becoming a standard is by focusing on accomplishing a singular task, making mobile commerce easy and secure with as few steps as possible.

In a phone call with Mobile Payments Today, Hendrix said the company is focused on the mobile, card-not-present (CNP) space because e-commerce, the sort done on computers, is not only growing but also in a period of transition.

"E-commerce represents $188 billion," Hendrix said. "And while that number is growing, it's moving to mobile." He added that even the size of individual mobile payment purchases is increasing as well. NuWallet's strategy is to position itself as the tool consumers want to use as they make that transition.

"We are focused on people converting from the PC to the mobile phone," Hendrix said.

The company's goal of becoming a standard m-commerce tool may sound difficult in light of the rapid changes to, and new entrants in, the mobile payments market, but it's attempting to get there with an application that is strikingly simple.

To use the NuWallet mobile wallet, customers store their credit card information in an encrypted application on their smartphones. The application is automatically activated either through a customer selecting NuWallet as a payment method on a participating merchant's website, or the customer can enter the application to search for available NuWallet merchants.

When the application is launched, the customer is prompted to enter a PIN that unlocks the wallet and allows the customer to select a payment account. Once an account is selected the application fills in the customer's payment information and shipping address and then completes the transaction, even providing a purchase confirmation, with only a few touches required. That's it.

"We want to make the consumer experience easier," Hendrix explained, noting that shoppers want to be able to make as few clicks as possible to complete a purchase.

The benefit isn't just to the customer, Hendrix said, it also makes for a "stickier" experience. That encourages customers to shop again, an obvious benefit for the merchant as well.

NuWallet has made integration with merchants easy as well. Merchants need only to add a simple piece of code to their online shopping carts that activates the NuWallet application. The company is even working to pre-integrate with popular online shopping carts to make that step even easier.

Security for the device is simple as well. Customer information is encrypted on the phone and can only be accessed by entering the customers PIN. More than four wrong attempts to access the information causes the information to be destroyed.

Keeping the data with the consumer makes much more sense than storing it in the cloud like many other wallet solutions, Hendrix said.

"Putting music in the cloud is all well and good, but I'd rather not have my personal data in the cloud," he said. "We decided to put the ownership of the credit card data back with the owner."

In addition to encrypting data on customer's phones, the application accesses only NuWallet merchant sites through a secure connection using the phone's browser. It also sends along the smartphone's 10 digit phone number during a purchase to confirm it's coming from the right device. And since no credit card information is stored anywhere but the customer's phone, the application is outside a merchant's PCI requirements.

The application is still in the test phase, but an Android version is currently ready for demonstration. The company expects to have an iPhone version in time for a launch by the second half of this year. The goal is to have both versions available by Cyber Monday.

Hendrix said NuWallet is already working with merchants, value-added resellers and the large merchant acquirers to get their payment method to e-commerce merchants, but he couldn't say who they're currently talking to.

The sale sales pitch is simple: Make m-commerce easy and see higher revenues. For the merchant that means more sales. For the resellers and acquirers that means more revenue to share.

And what about all those other new wallets looking to take the place of the old wallet? Hendrix doesn't seem too concerned.

"We think our timing is pretty good," he said.