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Take card payments on your Nokia with TaxiPay

Well this is rather neat.

A company by the name of Adelante is offering TaxiPay for mobile handsets. The service is targeted initially at Taxi Drivers who’d like to be able to take card payments with the minimum of fuss — it’s a really cool idea.

– It takes about a week to get setup with an account.
– You don’t need to have a merchant account. TaxiPay process the payments on your behalf — charging you for the privilege (6.5%) of course, but you can pass that on to the customers.
– The transaction details are encrypted
– Free to setup, you just pay as you go
– You’ve got to be a registered taxi driver to participate

It’s aimed at owner-drivers and I can see it being a total boon to them. It’s the sort of service I’d like to see more people having access to — so that when I get in the car and ask to be driven to [wherever] they can say yes and I can stick it on the company card. And avoid having to spend 20 minutes driving round looking for cashpoints.

I suspect that since it’s a Nokia handset in the demo, the service works for S60 devices.

It’d be rather interesting to see what would happen if this service was stuck on the iTunes App Store and made available to anyone who wanted to take card payments…

More details here: Adelante TaxiPay

15 COMMENTS

  1. Hmm, that's all well & good but would you read out your card details, security code, etc to a random taxi driver so he can type them in his phone! Plus since 2004 it has been mandatory in the UK that all “cardholder present” transactions should be done via Chip & PIN. In theory its a good idea but not really secure!

  2. I think it is great, much better than forking out to rent a terminal that you have to haul around everywhere. I have been looking at accepting cards for a few months now and this is ideal as I doubt I would get a merchant account. As for security, this is way more secure than calling into the office and trying to read all the details out over the phone to Doris or Dave while they write them down like many mobile operators do. And I think Paul is wrong, Chip and pin it is only a recommendation and up to the merchant, my local supermarket only started using it a few months ago!

  3. We are the developers of TaxiPay. Giving card details to a taxi driver is no different from placing an order over the phone and giving your card details there. Every driver signed up to the TaxiPay service is also licenced with either the public carriage office or their local council and would be stripped of this is caught breaking the law. TaxiPay also logs every transaction done by drivers and so can if a driver was stealing card details they would be easy to identify.

    Chip and PIN is not mandatory. In the US most cards do not have a Chip and Chip and PIN has only been adopted by some countries. The UK banks advise retailers to use Chip and PIN to protect themselves. This means that it is actually the TaxiPay driver who carries any fraud risk and not the card holder.

    Happy to answer any further questions / points

  4. With reference to this quote: “is no different from placing an order over the phone and giving your card details there”. It is different in the eyes of the bank. If you accept payments over the phone it is classed as a 'MOTO' payment (Mail Order / Telephone Order). What you have in the taxi is a CardHolder Present transaction, therefore you should either take the payment via a Chip & PIN reader or the customer verifies the purchase by a signed receipt. It may not be that Chip & PIN is mandatory yet according to APACS the two main areas of fraud last year were on transactions NOT protected by chip and PIN.

  5. So fraudsters steal card details to make cab journeys???? Even so, how would they do that without the 3 digit code off the back of the card that is needed? The demo uses the 3 digits. I suppose it is the same as booking online, letting the cabbie call it in or ordering a pizza delivery.

  6. The fact is according to the banks this is a cardholder present transaction, however, there is no way to prove that the cardholder was there. No PIN number, no signature, etc. Also, fraudsters always find the least secure places to test stolen card numbers before making a “big ticket” purchase. This includes places like self service petrol pumps, mobile top-ups and even charity donations. So this *could* be an easy target for them to try out stolen cards.

  7. Stolen cards have declined, it is stolen card numbers that has risen. When the numbers are stolen in the majority of cases they do not have the 3 digit security number from the back as they only rip of the mag strip. Taxipay uses the security number, and it seems they supply dockets to get the signature to prove the card was present too. If I go ahead I planned to ask for ID, even other cards in the same name, I get asked for ID when I use my cards abroad and I don't have an issue with it. Why go to the risk of handing over a dodgy card at the end of a cab journey, when you can pay for a billion things online where they don't see your face or where you went or have been.

  8. The rules are pretty simple and so is the fraud issue. Banks still accept card present payments without Chip and PIN. This is because many countries do not yet have Chip and PIN. This includes the USA and so tourists and businessmen coming to England may not have chips in their cards. There is NO RISK to the card holder. If the card details are stolen by the taxi driver and then used elsewhere the card holder can claim their money back because no proof exists that they did the transaction. The risk lies with the driver who may have the money reclaimed if the transaction is fraudulent. 3 key points! 1/Who steals cards to get free taxi rides. 2/ Card reported lost or stolen are declined by the system. 3/ Chip and PIN costs drivers about £30 per month and TaxiPay is free. Therefore unless the fraud is greater than £30 per month TaxiPay is cheaper option. It also works on nearly all phones including PDA and iPhones.

  9. Nice Concept..By Adelante Nice account Process For Taxi Drivers..I am also the Taxi Driver.I want the adelnate My mobile Locked to the Vodafone India ..I want to Unlock it..I found the Unlocking Instructions In the site http://www.mobileunlockguide.com/@free of cost I want the Unlocking code..

  10. Nice Concept..By Adelante Nice account Process For Taxi Drivers..I am also the Taxi Driver.I want the adelnate My mobile Locked to the Vodafone India ..I want to Unlock it..I found the Unlocking Instructions In the site http://www.mobileunlockguide.com/@free of cost I want the Unlocking code..

  11. Hey Darell,

    I have just found this discussion now. We are looking for a similar system to be used in Switzerland. Is TaxiPay still being used in the UK? I couldn’t find any other information about it in the web.
    Thanks.

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