Building app architecture for the future

Jacksonsillve, Fla.-based iMobile3 LLC started in 2009 as a boutique shop writing Android- and iOS-based applications for large enterprise customers. It has since grown to employ about 100 in-house staff, most of whom are developers dedicated to building app architecture for the top 100 acquirers and processors and other large enterprise clients.

"There are so many different things that we can do, from a licensing perspective as well as professional services," said Mike Hackney, Executive Vice President, Business Development at iMobile3. "We're not a product, and we're not just professional services; we're both."

While the company still focuses on enterprise-grade solutions, POS functions have been integrated into its architecture, and its suite of core products, developed in-house, is fully customizable. In addition to working with large clients such as FIS, Ingenico Group, TSYS, The Home Depot Inc. and Worldpay, the company offers a range of options to small and midsize business (SMB) clients. SMB engagement To accommodate clients of all sizes, iMobile3 spent two years developing its marketplace platform to unify merchant systems. For example, an iMobile3 client offering gift card, POS system and other products had its reporting systems in separate locations, and different logins were required to access individual programs, making it difficult to incorporate new products and cumbersome for merchants to access and use. For clients like this, the marketplace platform resolved a number of issues.

"We can consolidate all your products," Hackney said. "We built the marketplace where you put your brand on it; we'll take your data feeds and increase your reporting and analytics by times 3 or 4, and in quality." iMobile3 also offers digital marketing tools to help merchants manage social media, something client partners can package and resell.

"Just imagine a single location where a merchant logs in and they do all of their business," he said. "We created an environment where this can happen, and we also created a lot of the products that sit in there." He also noted that since the company rejected a one-size-fits-all approach to brand development, its clients enjoy maximum flexibility.

When micro and small merchants began migrating from terminals to open tablet systems, iMobile's acquiring partners requested solutions to address this market, but many in this market had limited budgets. "For smaller companies who were not ready to spend $100,000 to $1 million on their own technology, we built out our own point-of-sale platform, which scales from simple mobile all the way up to what we call our pro version," Hackney said.

According to Hackney, the enterprise-grade, cloud-based platform scales from single-store merchants to multilocation retailers with multiple POS systems per store; its pay-at-table and line-busting tablet-based capabilities benefit restaurants, and everything syncs up in real time. "It's scalable from a vertical and horizontal perspective, but also from a manufacturer perspective," he said.

Hackney added that iMoble3's dynamic trio delivers intelligence apps for managing business and merchant account data, including daily funding, merchant statements, chargeback information and trends analysis; engagement apps for managing digital marketing campaigns and social media reputation, which earned an ETA Transact 2017 innovation award; and commerce apps for handling POS and back-office functions.

The company also developed PassMarket, a loyalty platform for midsize retailers. When activating the program, the merchant enters a customer mobile phone number into the POS system, and the customer then receives a text message invitation to open and accept the app to start receiving points and offers.

Hackney noted that a number of companies are replacing closed, legacy systems and opting for open environments to facilitate payment and other business functions. "There's a middleware that third parties can connect to accept payment, and this open environment allows companies like ours and other third parties to build the point of sale and add unique things on top of the payment," he said.

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