In today’s ever-evolving world of mobile payment technology, anyone with a mobile phone can take credit card payments, from a neighbor running a garage sale to an entrepreneur building a small business. Now, this payment acceptance technology is slowing finding its way from micro-merchants to larger operations.

At the Apple Store, for example, where customers are busy purchasing iPhones and iPads, checkout stations have been eliminated and customers make payments at the point of purchase using a mobile phone.

But as new mobile technology options spring up, c-stores continue to ponder which concepts are best for them, what new technology will lead the payment reform of the future and, most of all, is the card data secure?

How It Works
Mobile payment acceptance is a way of allowing a mobile phone to accept a credit card payment using an attachment, such as a dongle—a small piece of hardware that plugs into an electrical connector on a phone or computer and acts as a key for a piece of software, so the program only runs when the dongle is plugged in.