PayMate launches PayPOS App that turns your phone into credit card processing terminal

Wireless transactions platform provider, PayMate has launched PayPOS app that allows businesses to accept and process electronic transactions using credit and debit cards directly on their mobile phones at the point of sale (POS) itself.

The app enables anyone with a Smartphone to sign up with PayPOS and begin transactions immediately. To charge, the merchant just needs to enter the customer’s mobile number and the amount on the screen. The customer then enters the card details and the secure password. The transaction is then processed in real time.

“Charging customers’ cards on the move can help settle transactions immediately and also have sales logged and tracked in the application. Merchants also have access to data such as transaction history and other reports on their mobile device as well as online on a merchant center making all sale related information available at his fingertips.

With the PayPOS first of its kind application launched in India for smartphones, transactions-on-the-move will be a suitable option for small businesses with smartphones, especially those who need mobility. Businesses in the unorganized retail sector will benefit tremendously from the services of this application.” [PayMate Founder and Managing Director, Ajay Adiseshann]

Another important feature is that this allows for a customer sitting at a remote location asking for a product or service delivery, make payment at the time of delivery.

PayPOS: How it works

Once registered as a merchant, you will be provided a Merchant ID (MID) and a Device ID (DID) that will enable you to use your mobile phone as a POS device and have your Merchant name show in the customer’s card statement. To charge a customer, simply enter his/ her 10-digit mobile number and amount to be charged on the screen. The customer then simply enters their credit card details and 3D secure password. Once the customer has entered the details, the transaction will be processed within a few seconds.

The app is free to download (supports Visa and Mastercard credit & debit card payments) and the only fee that will be charged is the regular credit card transaction fee (i.e. 2.95% of the transaction+ tax).

Watch this introductory video

A sort of square for India, just that instead of using the card reader, the app relies on manual input.

- App download link.

Link to full article

Read More

0.4% Rural and 6% Urban Households have Internet Connectivity: NSSO Report

If you thought India was well connected on the Internet, this may be a shocker. If the Akamai report stating India’s 114th position globally when it comes to internet speeds was not enough, here is another by our own National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), an organization in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) of the Government of India.

Only 3.5 households in 1000 in rural India had internet connectivity at home in 2009-2010 as per the NSSO Level and Pattern of Consumer Expenditure Report, published December 2011. Urban households fare much better, at 59.5 among 1000 connected to the internet.

Meaning, for every rural household that is connected to the internet, there are 17 urban households.

The report also gives statewise numbers of households in rural and urban India. Goa tops the rural penetration with 50 per 1000 households having access to internet, followed by the most literate state Kerala with 34, and Arunachal Pradesh with 19 households per 1000. Among the urban landscape, Mumbai leads the chart with 104/1000 households connected to the Internet, followed by Kerala and Himachal Pradesh (95 each) and Delhi (89.5).

The report is based on information collected during July 2009-June 2010 from 7,428 villages and 5,263 urban blocks spread over the entire country. Two different schedules were used to collect information on consumer expenditure, the first being canvassed in 100,855 households and the second in 100,794 households.

NSSO, the largest organisation in India conducting regular socio-economic surveys, conducts nationwide household consumer expenditure surveys at regular intervals as part of its “rounds”, each round normally of a year’s duration. These surveys are conducted through interviews of a representative sample of households selected randomly through a scientific design and cover almost the entire geographical area of the country. The household consumer expenditure survey (CES) is generally conducted as one of the main subjects of the NSS survey at quinquennial intervals. The 66th round survey (July 2009 – June 2010) was the eighth such survey of this quinquennial series.

Whether the household has access to internet at home was a special item of information collected through for the first time in the survey.

The sample data may not be sufficient for a nationwide result set, and the report acknowledges that larger sample sizes would be necessary in order to estimate the percentages of households with internet access in these small states and union territories with reasonable accuracy.

It also doesn’t take into account people connected to the internet via mobile phones, be it just for email and Facebook. This is good in a sense that it gives the actual picture of internet users, who use it heavily enough to invest in a broadband/dialup connection.

However, if you add the number of households whose members use mobile phones to reach the WWW, the divide between the rural and urban will be further dilated. Add to it the number of access points (office/ college labs/cyber cafes) where people access Internet other than homes, and you’ll find a larger gap, reinforcing the grim fact that Internet is still an Urban phenomenon.

What do you think? How can the Internet penetration be increased in rural India?

Image credit.

The complete report can be downloaded here.

Recommended Read: Indians Have More Mobile Phones Than Toilets, Only 3.1% Households Have Internet Connectivity [Census Data]

Link to full article

Read More

Navteq launches Indoor Navigation in India [Last Meter Guidance]

Searching for a shoe store in a mall? Well, Navteq has launched indoor navigation maps in India that features a unique set of interior map attributes (e.g., escalators, elevators) with detailed place data to enable users to navigate and explore indoor spaces.

“NAVTEQ Destination Maps are designed to enhance the consumer shopping experience by enabling the creation of applications that facilitate “internal” direct routes to stores, ATM’s, exits etc, whilst providing detailed information about Points of Interest (POI) and improved search functionality. Typical navigation solutions today guide users to where a destination is approximately located.  Navigation to a shopping mall, for example, takes a user to the closest location to a listed address on the road network, while in reality the final destination for the user could be a shoe store on the second floor of the mall.  Destination Maps addresses this need of “last meter guidance” by guiding the user all the way to the shoe store.”

Navteq’s Destination Maps is currently available in 150 malls across 17 cities.

Navteq has also expanded its coverage of Indian cities by over 80%, including over 1.28 million kilometers of road network and 6.25 million Points of Interest and recently launched real time traffic in India

Link to full article

Read More

News Roundup: Google launches App Vault in India

Vault gives Google Apps customers the extended management and information governance capabilities to proactively archive, retain and preserve Gmail and on-the-record chats. With the ability to search and manage data based on terms, dates, senders, recipients and labels, Vault helps you find the information you need, when you need it. Vault gives management, IT, legal and compliance users a systemized, repeatable and defensible platform that will reduce the costs and risks of doing business. With just a few clicks, the business can access a service designed for security and providing auditable access to critical information.

Google Apps Vault can be added to your Google Apps account for an additional $5 per user per month [source].

Telecom CEOs urge Sibal to trash regulator’s report

CEOs of telecom companies had another round of meetings with the Union Communications and IT Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, and urged him to reject the TRAI report on spectrum pricing on multiple grounds.

“There will be circles which will have more than a 100 per cent price rise (in tariffs) if they were to absorb the impact of what is being recommended,” the Bharti Airtel CEO, Mr Sanjay Kapoor, said after the meeting. “In one circle, the cost of spectrum, the reserve price is Rs 7 crore and on other end, there are metros where it is Rs 717 crore, which is a 100 times differential,” he said. [source]

DoT allocates BWA spectrum to Qualcomm

The Telecom Ministry is believed to have finally alloted spectrum to US-based Qualcomm for offering wireless broadband services, two years after it won the radio waves through auction. A senior DoT official, however, said Qualcomm will have the right to use this spectrum for 18.5 years only. [source]

 

Link to full article

Read More

Executives Leaving China’s Group Buy Industry

It’s no secret that group buy is more or less in shambles in China for everyone but a few of the top players. But it seems even some of those top players aren’t immune to the industry’s problems, as analysts have pointed out what seems to be a sort of exodus of high-level management from Chinese group buy companies.

For example, 55tuan lost its vice-chairman Chen Yongjun despite its status as second place in the contentious market; Mr. Chen left the company to join Lafaso, a more traditional e-commerce site. Manzuo, another top group buy site, also lost its vice-chairman; Si Xinying apparently left the company for a position in the media industry. Ganji (another vice-chairman), Gaopeng (a CEO), and other group buy sites have all also recently lost upper management staff. Insiders at 24quan, another top group buy outfit, say that numerous upper management types are making plans to leave that company as well, mostly because of disagreements with the CEO.

Whatever the reasons, the loss of experienced upper management probably isn’t good for China’s fledgling — and floundering — group buy industry. It’s also significant that most of these people are moving to other industries; in some cases, even industries like traditional e-commerce that compete directly with group buy for customers.

[Beijing Business Times via Sina Tech]

Link to full article

Read More

Executives Leaving China’s Group Buy Industry

It’s no secret that group buy is more or less in shambles in China for everyone but a few of the top players. But it seems even some of those top players aren’t immune to the industry’s problems, as analysts have pointed out what seems to be a sort of exodus of high-level management from Chinese group buy companies.

For example, 55tuan lost its vice-chairman Chen Yongjun despite its status as second place in the contentious market; Mr. Chen left the company to join Lafaso, a more traditional e-commerce site. Manzuo, another top group buy site, also lost its vice-chairman; Si Xinying apparently left the company for a position in the media industry. Ganji (another vice-chairman), Gaopeng (a CEO), and other group buy sites have all also recently lost upper management staff. Insiders at 24quan, another top group buy outfit, say that numerous upper management types are making plans to leave that company as well, mostly because of disagreements with the CEO.

Whatever the reasons, the loss of experienced upper management probably isn’t good for China’s fledgling — and floundering — group buy industry. It’s also significant that most of these people are moving to other industries; in some cases, even industries like traditional e-commerce that compete directly with group buy for customers.

[Beijing Business Times via Sina Tech]

Link to full article

Read More

Geek’s guide to tech and startup events in Singapore

Are you are confused geek? (Photo: Scot Duke)

Are you…..

An entrepreneur or entrepreneur-to-be?

Developer, designer, hacker or a startup-enthusiast?

New to Singapore?

Check out some of this cool events that happens monthly/ annually in Singapore!

Barcamp Singapore:

Barcamps are events where people come together to learn from each other in an informal setting. Barcamps feature discussions on various topics – from technology to travel, from science fiction to life-hacks. Barcamps are run all over the world by local volunteers. Usually, these meetups are run at shoe-string budgets at local universities, libraries or organizations. The main aim is to discover the creativity and talent in the community and learn from each other.

Event frequency: annually

BarcampSG8 will be held on 12 May at Tembusu College, University Town, NUS from 10am- 5.30pm. (more info)

Echelon:

Echelon is an annual tech conference organized by e27, a media organization focused on the Asian technology startup community. It is a two-day, double-track event with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops.

Echelon aims to be the frontier of the Internet and web technology landscape, where the main focus is to bring together the top brass of the web technology industry from various parts of the startup eco-system to facilitate discussion on the hot topics in the web startup scene.

Event frequency: annually, usually in the month of June.

Echelon 2012 is happening from 11 to 12 June 2012. (more info)

Founders Drinks:

Founder Drinks is a monthly evening event held in Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. Each month, a new speaker is invited to speak of a relevant  topic in the the tech and startup scene.

Event frequency: monthly.

Gamification Singapore:

Gamification Singapore is a newly setup community group that seeks to explore and share about the usage and application of game design or mechanics in non-game context. More importantly, we hope to approach this topic from a local perspective.

Event frequency: -

Geekcamp Singapore:

Geekcamp Singapore is a tech conference for technical people. The event features technical talks by people in the industry.

Event frequency: annually

Global Game Jam Singapore:

The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world’s largest game jam event. A project of the International Game Developers Association(IGDA), it occurs annually in late January, and brings together thousands of game enthusiasts, participating in hundreds of local jamsaround the world. The structure of a jam is usually that everyone gathers on Friday afternoon, watches a short video keynote with advice from leading game developers, and then a secret theme is announced. All sites worldwide are then challenged to make games based on that same theme, with games to be completed by Sunday afternoon.

Event frequency: annually in late January.

Mobile Monday:

MobileMonday Singapore is a local community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influential individuals. The mobile community fosters cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets. With one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in Asia, the mobile industry in Singapore has managed to deepen its mobile intellectual property creation capabilities to create a vibrant mobile R&D and technology innovation hub, stimulating new market demands and connections with the rest of the world.

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/momosingapore/

Event frequency: monthly

Open Coffee Club:

Open Coffee Club is a place for people who love startups to hang out and meet. The community was started to encourage entrepreneurs, developers and investors to organise real-world informal meetups to chat, network and grow a better ecosystem.

Event frequency: Every last Thursday of the month between 10AM-12PM at the Pigeonhole.

SataySocial:

#SataySocial is a monthly gathering in Singapore where people with an interest in all things social and digital can meet up, get to know others who share similar interests, swap stories, and of course, have some delicious satay.

Event frequency: every fourth Thursday of the month

SoLoMo Thursday:

SoLoMo Thursday is a non-profit event created to bring awareness to online Social, Location-based and Mobile technologies to B2C businesses. We meet every last Thursday of the month so stay tuned here and www.solomothursday.com for the latest updates!

Event frequency: every last Thursday of the month.

Startup Weekend Singapore:

Startup Weekends are 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups. Entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if their startup ideas are viable.  On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds.

Event frequency: annually

Web Wednesday:

Web Wednesday is an industry led, offline, social networking group for the Digital Media Industry in Singapore.  Our focus is to stimulate conversations on trends in our industry and to get everyone together physically in an informal setting once a month. Event sessions consist of a speaker who will share their insights (no sales pitch) on a relevant industry topic for about 10-15 minutes.

Event frequency: monthly. Usually on the 3rd or 4th Wednesday of each month from 6:30-9:00pm.

If you’re an organiser of tech and startup community events, do contact me at joanna[at]e27.sg to be featured here.

Link to full article

Read More