Boston, Mass. -- January 31, 2013 -- There’s a big divide between the 20-to-30-year-old technology sitting on most merchants’ countertops and the new world of payment, loyalty and rewards offerings entering the market daily. Technologies such as mobile, NFC, QR codes and EMV are driving commerce forward, often faster than merchants can keep up. That’s why Merchant Warehouse is announcing the availability of The Genius Customer Engagement Platform™ in the U.S. market today.

Genius is a software platform that lets merchants accept any kind of payment, discount or loyalty program within a single transaction. Using Genius, merchants can also increase revenue by offering loyalty-building incentives and offers that attract new customers and retain current ones.

Previously in limited pilot, Genius is currently available to any merchant in the U.S. market. The premise is simple: merchants can download any mobile commerce or loyalty partner app available within the Genius platform, such as LevelUp or Isis. As merchants grow and their mobile commerce opportunities expand, they can easily add apps to their Genius platform from the growing collection of third party integrations.  

"The new Genius Customer Engagement Platform means so much more than just being able to accept any type of payment," said Andrew Elegante, owner of South Bend Brew Werks, a Genius early adopter. "Our shop has many loyal customers that visit us repeatedly, often referring friends. We now have a way to give our customers targeted rewards through Genius' mobile commerce application integrations, turning what used to be a countertop device at the register into a powerful marketing and loyalty platform for our business."

Updates to Genius and its platform partner apps are pushed seamlessly through the cloud, so merchants don’t need to make regular, costly replacements to hardware. Genius is a PCI compliant solution that separates all sensitive data from being stored on the point-of-sale system, meaning developers, merchants and consumers can rest easy knowing that transactional data is protected through encryption.

“Being an early Genius partner has been an important part of our strategy to extend the value of our point-of-sale solution to merchants,” said Dax Dasilva, founder and CEO, Lightspeed. “When merchants discover that the critical moment at the checkout counter is a powerful opportunity to give customers targeted, money-saving offers, Genius becomes much more than just a universal, dead-simple way to accept payments.”

Here’s how Genius works for the merchant:

• Merchants need only set up the easy-to-install customer engagement device, and download the payment, loyalty or marketing apps they’d like to accept.
• At checkout, the customer simply selects his or her preferred payment method on the interactive Genius touchscreen.
• In the same transaction, merchants can add on loyalty programs or apply discounts, providing a powerful new way to reward customers.
• Genius is a hardware-agnostic software platform, and currently comes preloaded from Merchant Warehouse on the VeriFone MX915.

“During our 15 years in payments and merchant services, we observed that the industry was evolving faster than the industry’s payment technology was equipped to support,” said Henry Helgeson, CEO of Merchant Warehouse. “Genius is the only solution available that is designed to accept any type of payment, loyalty or discount program in a completely integrated, cloud-managed environment. Merchants can’t afford to wait out the mobile payment wars to find out who will win. The time to integrate new technologies is now – and open platforms like Genius give merchants tremendous opportunity to generate real revenue beyond the simple transaction.”

There’s a Genius solution for any sized business, with options designed to grow and scale with the merchant. Visit merchantwarehouse.com/genius for more about Genius product suite. POS or payment-related technology providers wanting to integrate with Genius can email geniuspartner@merchantwarehouse.com.

About Merchant Warehouse
Merchant Warehouse is a recognized leader in payment acceptance solutions and merchant services. With Merchant Warehouse, merchants, agents, POS developers and VARs can achieve strategic business advantage through the delivery of current and emerging payment, offer and program solutions and merchant services that dramatically enhance the merchant-customer experience. The company’s new Genius Customer Engagement Platform enables businesses to always connect with customers in the most important place – the sale. A single, intuitive platform that integrates every transaction technology, loyalty program and more, Genius ensures businesses never lose a sale to lack of compatibility. Merchant Warehouse is one of the fastest growing payment technology companies in North America.

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