Groupon Looking at Mobile Payments?

Groupon is testing a mobile payment service of its own, VentureBeat reports. The potential move shows the increasingly complex relationship between mobile marketing, the loyalty and promotion business and mobile-enabled payments. 


Like other services from Square, Intuit, PayPal, Verifone and Sage, the Groupon service would use a dongle on a smart phone that provides the card swipe reader, with the revenue earned on each transaction.


Groupon might be banking on the fact that there are segments within the mobile-enabled payments business. 


Groupon's pricing is said to include a 1.8 percent transaction fee and a 15 cent per transaction charge for transactions processed through the terminal. 


Square charges 2.75 percent with no per transaction fee. 


PayPal Here and Verifone Sail charge 2.7 percent, also with no transaction fee. 


But different cards have different pricing. Groupon is charging 2.7 percent  for processing American Express  transactions. Square and PayPal don’t charge extra, and Sail charges 3.7% for American Express transactions.


Groupon also is offering customers an iPod Touch and card reader, free of charge. 

For customers whose typical transaction exceeds $15, it can make financial sense to use Groupon’s offering. On a $100 Visa transaction, Groupon would charge $1.95, Square’s $2.75.