Zapa Technology, an Irish manufacturer of contactless stickers for cell phones, has chosen Postilion, a UK-based provider of payments software solutions, as its core payments platform for its new mobile prepaid, loyalty and gift card processing services for European retailers.
Zapa recently introduced its ZAPA TAG, a contactless sticker that can be placed inside or outside a mobile phone, which can then serve as a loyalty or prepaid card. Consumers need only wave an enabled phone across the ZAPA terminal, located at participating retailers’ POS systems to redeem an offer, access a service or collect loyalty points. It also hopes to eventually make use of NFC technology as well.
Postilion, a division of S1 Corporation, will enable Zapa to centrally manage all loyalty points and contactless transactions and provide detailed reports to merchants. Zapa will also be able to add new payment services as retailers diversify from prepaid top-up into other offerings, such as gift cards and lottery ticket purchases.
Zapa is launching its services by seeding a POS infrastructure to strategic retailers and providing their customers with its tags. By initially focusing on the Irish market, Zapa hopes to ignite consumer demand, turning the desire for contactless convenience into a tangible business value for retailers, the company says.
The Zapa system will also be available to retailers in the UK and continental Europe, providing them with an alternative to in-house contactless payments development. Zapa anticipates that loyalty applications will drive the initial push, with an emphasis on creating a universal system to support multiple retailers. In other words, a single ZAPA TAG could access separate branded wallets on the customer’s mobile display, showing loyalty points accrued from each retailer. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/nfcnews-4.gif)
