payleven, one of Europe’s mobile payment pioneers, is now cooperating with telecommunications provider Telefónica Germany (Update – March 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).
Like Square, the US-based originator of this concept, payleven turns a smartphone or tablet into a card terminal, enabling small businesses and mobile service providers to accept card payments everywhere – without any fixed costs or complicated signup process.
The cooperation started its pilot phase on the 3 December in selected O2 shops and O2 partner shops in Germany, and will be further expanded to all O2 shops and O2 partner shops after successful completion of the pilot. Businesses who sign or renew their mobile phone contract will receive a payleven ‘dongle’ as well as a promotion code. With this code merchants can take the first €1,000 of card payments free of charge.
To start, merchants download the free payleven app via the Apple or Google Play Store. After a simple and straight-forward registration process as well as a quick risk assessment, they can use payleven to accept payments straight away. The company ascertains that no matter where you take payments, at the doorstep of your customer’s home or at the beach selling ice cream, card payments have “never been as mobile, convenient and affordable as they are now”.
payleven’s conditions are transparent; There is no minimum revenue and no monthly charges, and the fees are exclusively transaction-based at 2.75% of the transaction value. Also, no amount is too little to take payments via payleven. Starting from €1 upwards, card payments can be accepted. payleven is very suitable for small businesses who want to try out card payments.
Michael Kurz, Vice President of Digital Partnerships at Telefónica Germany explains: “The cooperation with payleven fits perfectly our strategy to build an ecosystem for financial services as well as making our customers’ life easier through mobile payments.”
payleven is headquartered in Berlin and was founded just this year. The startup is backed by Rocket Internet, Holzbrinck Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.
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