Who’s Falling Behind In MPOS

The mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) market is steadily moving toward an omnichannel experience that is as much about tablets as handsets, and businesses that don’t adapt face the risk of falling behind. That’s the latest from ROAM CEO Ken Paull who spoke with Market Platform Dynamics CEO Karen Webster about the ecosystem as it heads into 2014 in a new interview.

One of the key drivers forcing players from the market, Paull suggested, will be the move toward specialization on the part of mPOS players (Jump to 3:10). An increased level of sophistication could help mPOS providers focus their services on a select group of merchants and open up some possible revenue opportunities as 2014 gets under way, Paull said.

Webster, however, countered pressing Paull to answer another burning question for the space and its relatively new entrants, how will these companies make money? (Jump to 4:15) Stating that “all players have the same challenge” in regards to generating profits, Paull said that he believes staying disciplined and having a market strategy will be crucial during the next 12 months as the space goes through this transition.

Paull later revealed the specific stakeholders he deemed most at risk (Jump to 8:15), saying that ISOs and acquirers could fall behind if they failed to respond to the market’s momentum. However, this was just one prediction that Paull has for the upcoming year.

To hear these predictions in full, listen to our full podcast with Paull below. And for more insights into how the mPOS market is developing, read the latest version of our MPOS Tracker here.

*If you have trouble with the audio player above, click here.

Ken Paull, CEO of ROAM

Ken has over 20 years in senior management roles in the electronic payments industry including senior vice president at RBS Lynk (now WorldPay), vice president at Triton Systems and general manager at VeriFone. He was responsible for building and rapidly growing what is now WorldPay’s national account payments division while also directing the turnaround of what had been a declining ATM processing business. While at Triton, the company surpassed NCR as the second largest domestic ATM supplier and also became the global leader in retail ATM deployments.

At VeriFone, Ken built their major account, retail division which has become one of the largest segments of their business. Most recently, Ken has held positions of board director at Access to Money, director at Market Platform Dynamics and president of Pax. A native of the Boston area, Ken holds a B.S. in Marketing and Communications from Babson College, as well as an MBA in Telecommunications Management from Golden Gate University.