Trades sign up for fast cash

A Kiwi boss who has developed technology that allows tradesmen to take on-the-spot credit card payments through an iPhone says electronic money transfers are on the verge of a "revolution".

For a monthly subscription of $34.50, plus transaction fees, businesses take payments instantly from customers, claimed to be the first of its kind in New Zealand.

Flo2Cash managing director Roger Yibo Wang said: "It's an application that allows our customers to take credit card payments in real time, wherever they are in the country." Wang said Flo2Cash hoped to double their 500 customers by the end of the year. It took three months to develop the application.

A report from Dunn & Bradstreet said tradesmen waited an average of 45 days for clients to pay invoices. Wang said the money could now go straight into their bank accounts, which solved their cash-flow problems.

Clients say it is good value for money.

The Heat Pump Guys boss, Tony Truman, said setting up the Flo2Cash iPhone application was much easier than organising payment facilities from a bank. "There are so many hoops to jump through with the banks, even with your own bank. They ask you to sign your life away."

Wang said that "merchants" took a customer's credit card number and typed details into the Flo2Cash iPhone App. Then the transaction was processed in real-time, advising the result of the transaction. The merchant received the money within two banking days.

Truman said all his tradesmen carried iPhones already.

Wang said he was also looking at developing a "peer-to-peer" iPhone application, which would allow people to transfer money instantly while out and about.

"The whole payment transfer industry is in the middle of a revolution. We set ourselves to provide new services, that's the real spirit of entrepreneurship."

Another service called Rentontime allows landlords and tenants to take and make payments.

"Our goal is to simplify the whole payment industry."