Don’t feel like paying PayPal’s annoying transaction fees? One Toronto-based startup is launching today and wants people to know that they don’t have to lose out on that money.
Wi-Py is a new wireless payments application designed for smartphone, tablet and computer use, offering zero-fee transactions to Individuals, and a withdrawal fee of 1 percent (on a minimum of $5) to sellers, merchants and charities.
Wi-Py stands for “wireless payments”.
Wi-Py’s business model is based on avoiding costly credit card and inter-bank payments in favour of funding via cash deposit, cheques or Interac E-Mail Transfer directly into the Wi-Py bank account. Since all payments within Wi-Py do not require inter-bank transfers, they cost the startup nothing.
Credit Card payments are still accepted from individual users, but they;ll have to pay a convenience fee of 1 percent (min $1). The only other time individual users will be charged is via a withdrawal, which is also just a 1 percent fee on a minimum $2. The company says that “you won’t find a cheaper, more innovative, easy to use online payments service anywhere in the world!”
Wi-Py service can be used to make small payments or donations, split a restaurant bill with co-workers or friends, collect cash for an office pool or social committees, pay for merchandise bought on eBay, Craigslist or Kijiji, pay for a cab fare, coffee, event tickets or anything else. Wi-Py also offers new services such as Escrow, E-Gift, CyberCash and IOUs.
There’s no need to download any App or install software of any kind as users must only create a username and password. Wi-Py can be accessed using a regular browser such as Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and it runs on any operating system, either Windows, Mac, iOS, Android.
Merchants and users who want to withdraw cash or to run balances over $1,000 must ‘verify’ their account, which may take a few days, as individuals and companies are authenticated.
Similar to Paypal, Wi-Py offers custom buttons that can be embedded on 3rd party websites for quick payment processing, as well as printable QR Codes.
Wi-Py also provided us with a video of their founder Michael Nicula explains the service.
