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to fund themselves to build the world's best applications in every vertical," and merchant level salespeople.
Speiser said. Speiser said First Data does not
intend to make money on placing the
Clover's marketplace is therefore also a platform for developers to market hardware, but rather use the Clover
custom apps directly to the businesses that have an interest in those apps, Station to "renew that relationship
without having to pound the pavement. "For the first time, people will genuinely and put the structure in place to have
be able to build whole businesses around the SMB [small to midsize business] a really good interaction."
market, without getting killed on the sales side," Speiser said.
No price point has been set for
Clover, which was bought by First Data in 2012 and now operates as an Clover Station because First Data's
autonomously run subsidiary of the merchant acquiring giant, fills a gaping distribution partners will make that
need for merchants, he stated. Just as standard countertop POS terminals determination. But Speiser compared
will disappear in five years because they have little functionality beyond the its cost to what is charged for a cash
payment mechanism, the more forward thinking mobile POS strategies, such register and basic POS terminal. "The
as the Square Inc. dongle and app combination, are still too standardized to be real opportunity here is to open up 20
of much use to SMBs, according to Speiser. new revenue streams and also 20 new
ways for a merchant to actually solve
He said even in the heart of Silicon Valley, where merchants are constantly their business needs," he said.
inundated with new tech gadgets, only one in 60 businesses operate a tablet
POS solution, with the majority still running "old school" cash registers and
standard POS terminals. "And the reason for this is that the current solutions
for these businesses, the newer things that have been coming out, they don't Tyfone
address the needs of those businesses," he added.
confronts
Apt for ISOs, MLSs
data security
The Clover Station may represent a powerful merchant retention tool for ISOs

'cross over'

n Oct. 7, 2013, mobile
identity verification and
security firm Tyfone Inc.
O entered a pilot program
with Wisconsin-based CoVantage
Credit Union to test Tyfone's con-
nected smartcard (CSC) technology.
The CSC chip hardware, that can be
integrated into different form factors,
such as a plastic card, microSD card
or key chain dongle, is designed to
protect consumers' banking and pay-
ment data at a time when the two-
factor authentication method of user
name and password is widely seen
as broken.

The pilot is based on Tyfone's
SideSafe microSD card for Android-
based smartphones, with CoVantage
employees and select business
members issued "corporate IT"
devices. The plan is for the pilot to
then transition to the Bring Your Own
Device stage.

Post pilot, Tyfone expects to
introduce its proprietary SideKey
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