How the Cool College Kids Will Pay On Campus

What if there was a solution to drive mobile prepaid acceptance for communities like college campuses? Students could receive, store and spend money sent from parents in a text, or text money to a friend who spotted them with cash at a local store.

The PXT Payments’ mobile payments app looped in^®, launched two years ago, allows users to pay securely, find deals, find merchants that accept the app, send deals or money to friends, and more. It does not require a wallet or a bankcard – in fact, card number and account details are never used in a transaction. The app is a fully electronic system that’s enabled through a mobile device.

Bill Nyhan, CEO at PXT Payments, recently spoke with PYMNTS on how his company is working to be a “trusted community” payments platform and bring something new to the mobile commerce table.

Your website describes PXT Payments as a different sort of payments platform. What makes you unique?

BN: Well, we’re focused on being the “trusted community” mobile payments platform, especially for the college market. We’ve made sure to include all constituents like university administration, on-campus merchants, off-campus merchants, alumni, athletics, students, parents, and more. We want to have a solution for all of them, and that adds significant value.

PXT Payments have its roots in prepaid.  As the convergence of prepaid and mobile takes shape, how can merchants capitalize on this opportunity and how is PXT prepared to help?

BN: For merchants, we want to provide complete transparency so it’s clear what the cost of a transaction is, and an ease of doing business. Users also don’t need any other devices for looped in – they pay basically with the key data being just their phone number. But we have listened to the market feedback from consumers and merchants, and have developed a QR code and scanning mechanisms so no one actually has to provide a cell phone number. The idea is to enable simplicity, speed, and transparency with no added cost to the merchant.

Security is a top concern in the age of mobile buying.  You launched looped in, a smart phone application, two years ago – what role does it play in strengthening mobile payments security? 

BN: One of the things that excites us, especially for the college market, is that there is no personal information involved. It’s an app that a user downloads and sets up an account in – but the only information that’s required is a PIN, the security code that only that user has. Users can then load money either through their banking system, or through a credit or debit card, however they’d like to pay. The money in the account is the users’ – no one else has access to it.

When they go to use looped in to pay for something, they provide their PIN, and information is processed through the cloud, and the cost is displayed. The user can look at it, leave a tip, make adjustments, and submit and approve it with their PIN. The information is transacted immediately, without any paper – but you can require a paper document from the merchant. So there is no personal, financial or credit information tied to using looped in , which is important since security is a very big concern for college campuses and parents.

The mobile payments ecosystem is complex and disruptive. What are the most successful strategies for developing innovative mobile payments apps? 

BN: I think there’s a real challenge in the industry. A lot of what we’re doing is implementing a vision that John Regan had, who was the founder of PXT Payments. A critical part of that vision is to provide a platform that adds significant value to the constituents. If you look at an individual today as a consumer who uses mobile payments apps, it’s difficult to determine why one solution versus the other? When we talk to merchants, there’s that same issue.

That’s why we try to focus on community, on having a payment that could be used within that community that could add significant value. We’ve included additional features like texting, the ability for a user to send money to a friend, or a parent send money to the student. If four people walk into the store and only one person has cash and three others don’t, they could text money to that one person and that person would pay for everyone. It’s also paperless, part of a greening philosophy in terms of the environment. We have incorporated athletics – right now it can be used at places like the alumni stadium at Boston College and Agganis Arena at Boston University. We’ve focused on just a few schools now to make sure it’s easy to use and compelling. The best way to make it work is to tie in all the constituents in the community related to the student experience – that’s really been a big differentiator for us.

Bill Nyhan
CEO, PXT Payments

Bill is a serial entrepreneur. He is the Principal and sole Owner of Nyhan Associates, an investment banking, financial services and strategy consulting firm. He is also a co-founder of eCoast Angels, one of the oldest, active angel investment groups in New England. Currently, he is a co-founder and Principal in Environments@Work, the largest Haworth dealer in New England. Previously, he co-founded Office Environments of New England, which at time of sale, was the largest Steelcase dealer in the US. Bill was also a Principal at York Hill Company, a financial services and investment banking entity, and served as a General Partner of Aconcagua Company, a venture capital firm. He currently sits on the boards of Aras Corporation, Atlas Water Systems, Inc., ByteLight, Inc., Environments@Work, LLC, FastAsset, Inc., Integrated Interiors@Work, LLC and MediaMate, LLC.

To listen to the full podcast, click here.