Making mobile payments acceptance easy for merchants has been an ongoing challenge for mobile payment providers, but point-of-sale maker VeriFone Systems Inc. is looking to solve that problem.

VeriFone has launched a new suite of services aimed at helping mobile network operators manage accepting mobile payments at merchant systems. The new PAYMEDIA Universal Acceptance Platform (UAP) closes the loop between wallet providers and merchants, the company said.

"The missing element in MNO’s mobile wallet plans has been the lack of focus on how to provision, integrate and manage wallet and value-added acceptance apps at merchants’ systems,” said Paul Rasori, VeriFone senior vice president of marketing. 

Rasori said PAYMEDIA UAP manages the complexities of mobile commerce acceptance and ensures a seamless buying experience no matter what wallet, app or program consumers bring to stores.

According to VeriFone's announcement, PAYMEDIA UAP provides everything needed to deliver the benefits of mobile payment, promotions and couponing applications. The platform is intended to make sure that transactions using mobile wallets can be processed by merchants' systems as well as allowing wallet providers to expand the services and applications they offer through their mobile wallets.

The PAYMEDIA UAP works by letting MNO’s and wallet providers download wallet acceptance applications directly to merchants’ POS systems. It also lets merchants connect apps to providers via the cloud-based PAYMEDIA Network Services. Wallet providers are able to maintain full management capabilities over their applications with the ability to update them at any time with new features and services managing every aspect of acceptance, VeriFone said.

The full suite of services available through PAYMEDIA UAP includes the PAYMEDIA Network Services, Estate Management software, and the VeriFone NFC App Manager built into all VeriFone NFC acceptance platforms. The PAYMEDIA UAP platform also provides open API common interface standards to ensure that value-added wallet data not traditionally supported will flow seamlessly through merchant systems without disruption, VeriFone said.

For more information on this topic, visit the POS research center.