A Bank-Free Cloud Payment App?
According to the findings for 2013 from the FDIC, 1/13 or just under 8% of households in the US were ‘unbanked’. This adds up to around 9.6 Million households, with an additional 24.8 million (20%) ‘underbanked’; this is where an individual has a bank account but they also use alternative financial services outside of the banking system.
Now with the migration to cashless purchases, with online retail and app purchasing on the rise, with services using card touch or pay by phone; there is becoming less and less use for cash. So what about the Millions of US households who, for whatever reason don’t use banking services. This is one of the problems that Florida based ALTPAY has come to solve, with their mobile payment app.
In order to make a purchase with the app, a user needs to set the amount and store location of a ALTPAY accepted store, they will then get a unique code to show to the teller and the purchase is made. The app can be ‘topped up’ either through a bank account or credit card, or with cash at registered tellers.
Yesterday ALTPAY announced that they had received a $1 Million equity investment from two family office investors.
Victor Cook, managing partner of ALTPAY said, “ALTPAY is one of two first-to-market companies that are already doing business, have clients and revenue. Successfully up and running since March in the South Florida area, our mobile payment service is secure and private, saves merchants money and helps them to retain customers making every day purchases.”
Though their current users include US based regional and mid-market retailers, ranging from supermarkets and grocers, to pharmacies and convenience stores; they hope to extend to Latin America within Q1 of next year.
The app is available on all Android, Apple and Windows phone platforms.
