CES 2015 – LoopPay Wants To Make Your New Wallet A Phone Case

Mobile users could soon be able to pay for their purchases using payments technology built in to a phone case.

American company LoopPay has revealed two new partners which it says will mean users of several Samsung devices will soon be able to benefit from mobile payment-enabled cases.

The company will team up with XPAL Power to produce a series of rear covers for the Samsung Galaxy S5 which will allow users to pay for their goods or services via a quick touch.

LoopPay will also work with rugged case manufacturer Trident Case to produce a payment-enabled case for the Samsung Note 4, with availability later in 2015.

LoopPay says it is also working with chipmakers to embed its technology into future mobile chips, making it easier for future OEM partners to incorporate LoopPay into their devices.

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LoopPay has an advantage over other mobile payment technologies, such as NFC, in that it works with existing point of sale terminals, transferring payments via a small electromagnetic field that imitates a card swipe.

Targeting markets where customers commonly swipe their cards to pay for purchases, such as the US, LoopPay says its technology is accepted at nearly 90 percent of merchant locations, making it the world’s most accepted mobile wallet. NFC technology, used by solutions such as Apple Pay, is only accepted at around three percent of retailers, LoopPay says.

“Consumer interest in mobile payments has skyrocketed recently. However, to reach widespread adoption and usage, consumers need a technology that’s secure and convenient. Convenient means letting consumers use the cards they want at the places they shop (what a wallet should do),” said Will Graylin, CEO of LoopPay.

“We invented a solution that lets users digitize all of their cards and works virtually everywhere. We want to deliver the kind of convenience that can start shifting people to rely on their mobile wallets and leave their physical wallets at home.”

UK consumers are increasingly coming round to mobile payments, especially as NFC technology becomes more prevalent in more and more high street shops.

A survey conducted for m-payment company Zapp found that nearly half of UK customers (some 21 million people) would be prepared to leave if their current bank was unable to offer mobile payments and had no plans to do so.

Some 59 percent of respondents said they would use their phone to pay if a simple system existed and did not require extra set up, 48 percent more than a year ago.

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