Source: CardFlight

CardFlight, the New York based startup, is announcing today the launch of their private beta.

CardFlight provides tools to app developers to make it easy for them to integrate card-present payments into their own mobile applications. They offer an encrypted magnetic stripe reader and a simple SDK/API so that developers can safely and securely accept card present payments in their apps, with support for their existing merchant account. CardFlight works with most iOS and Android devices.

Transparent, developer-centric approach

CardFlight offers a simple SDK with clear documentation and developer-centric support. Founder and CEO Derek Webster said, "Stripe and other services have gained a lot of traction recently with a developer-friendly approach; however, those companies are mostly focused on enabling e-commerce or 'card not present' transactions. In contrast, CardFlight is bringing the same ease of integration to offline or 'card present' applications, which still comprise over 90% of credit card payment volume in the United States."

Developers keep full control over their user experience

The CardFlight SDK is designed to be embedded within a developer's own application. With just a few lines of code to integrate, developers can ensure that the flow to take a payment matches the rest of their app's functionality.

Open platform approach is unique

While there are a number of "dongle" payments companies like Square, PayPal Here or Intuit GoPayment, each one of them forces merchants to use their bundled application and payment processing. The horizontal approach of offering an all-in-one package is typically used for selling directly to a micro-merchant.

In comparison, CardFlight doesn't sell directly to small merchants

Rather, they provide tools to enterprise merchants and vertical app developers who want to integrate payment acceptance into their broader applications. Examples include event management applications that needs to offer event organizers the ability to sell tickets at the door, CRM apps that want to enable field sales while tying payment details to customer data, medical practice management apps that want to collect a co-pay while keeping the rest of the details available for insurance billing, and tablet POS developers looking for an easy way to incorporate payment acceptance.

Processor-neutral approach reduces challenges of payments integration

CardFlight doesn't directly provide merchant accounts, but they route transactions to most major processors. This allows developers to shop around and negotiate the lowest processing costs but use CardFlight for a fast and easy integration. CardFlight works with most leading payment processors, including Stripe, First Data, TSYS, Vantiv, Chase Paymentech and WorldPay ‐ with more in the pipeline. If a CardFlight developer doesn't have an existing merchant account, they can easily sign up for a Stripe account using a simple one page form on their CardFlight developer dashboard.

Additionally, because CardFlight provides encrypted hardware readers, developers don't have the ability to access credit card details directly. This end-to-end encryption is safe and secure while significantly reducing the burden on application developers in maintaining Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance.

"As mobile payments take off, we noticed a gap in the industry. There was no open API for card-present mobile payments. We decided to create a transparent, easy-to-integrate SDK where developers could focus on creating great apps for their clients and we could take care of the payments," said Derek Webster, Founder and CEO of CardFlight.

CardFlight is available today in private beta.