Bling Nation, a mobile payments network, announced during the opening day of BAI's Retail Delivery Conference and Expo that Woodland Park, Colo.-based Park State Bank & Trust is now offering access to Bling's mobile payments network to its customers and community. According to a news release from Bling, which is exhibiting at RD at booth No. 247, Bling's Community Payments Service is a secure local debit network that is driven by the tap of a mobile phone. The service enables financial institutions and merchants to avoid interchange fees associated with traditional payments network. As a result, shopping locally is promoted and money is kept within the Woodland Park community, Bling says. With each purchase, an SMS message containing the account balance and rewards updates is sent to the consumer's mobile device.
"Woodland Park is a community that encourages residents to shop locally and support neighborhood merchants," said Tony Perry, president of Park State Bank & Trust. "The introduction of Bling Nation's mobile payments network to the community has been very well-received. Most of our residents work in Colorado Springs, but do their banking and shopping locally."
Park State Bank & Trust is offering access to Bling's Community Payments Service to more than 30 local merchants. Merchants such as Quizno's, Papa John's, Big O Tire, Seven Arrows Gallery, Charitable Treasures, The UPS Store in Gold Hills Square and Studio West are now signed with the service.
Bling says its core technology is an integrated issuing and acquiring platform designed for local and regional banks. Through its Community Payments Service, Bling Nation enables FIs to more profitably support payments between their local demand deposit account customers and their merchant customers by bypassing the global debit payment model with an efficient, cost-effective and local payment network.
