solrevdev: The app55 API: Turning Britain, and the World, into a Nation of E-Shopkeepers [feedly]

Monday, August 05, 2013

The app55 API: Turning Britain, and the World, into a Nation of E-Shopkeepers [feedly]

Mobile payments used to be difficult difficult lemon difficult.

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The app55 API lets online and bricks and mortar merchants in the UK take payments from customers on any device, on websites designed and controlled by the retailer. app55 joins 362 payment APIs in our directory. In addition to offering one click, being fully brandable (meaning the customer sees your site only, and is not aware of app55's role), all of the stiff PCI compliance issues that make handling these transactions so complex is outsourced through them.

The crucial compliance issue, of course, is to avoid capturing an storing the end user's credit card data. That's a tough nut to crack, to use the data in order to charge the card without actually holding onto that data, a task made easy by involving third parties aimed at handling this issue. Adding firewalls, an intrusion detection system, and many other security features bullet-proofs the operation.

The documentation on this RESTful API (responses in JSON/JSONP with authentication via an API key) offers a tutorial on four steps needed to implement the API. First you need to create the payment form in HTML, then initialize the app55 JavaScript library, cerate and submit the form and send the returned transaction ID to your servers. But this can all be accomplished with a few lines of code.

Merchants seem to like it, if Dafydd Thomas, Head of Consumer Strategy at Remploy is any indication,

"The company looked at a number of different solutions but selected App55 because it offers a secure, one-click checkout for customers while suppliers can be integrated quickly and are paid immediately."

app55 is aiming at a broad market, from the largest companies in Britain all the way down to the mom and pop shops. And it appears that its addressable market may be much bigger than just Britain. Despite have both offices located in the UK, app55 does "accept payments in all major currencies and countries with multi-channel and multi-device capability."