Charities Set To Benefit from Cost Reducing Technology

New Zealand charitable organisations will be given an additional helping hand with the launch of a low-cost credit card gateway which will allow them to accept donations for less than 1% per transaction.

Swipe HQ Checkout is a virtual credit card merchant facility which allows charities and businesses to accept credit card transactions without the need to utilise a terminal and at a lower cost than competitors.

Created by Kiwi cloud technology company Optimizer HQ, the new gateway will mean that more money reaches the people in the community who need it most.

Optimizer HQ CEO Manas Kumar says unlike private businesses, charities are obligated to maintain a low administrative cost ratio and this will assist them to meet those criteria.

Charities using banks and offshore payment gateways currently could be facing a fixed monthly fee on top of an initial set up cost and other fees, which can be upwards of 4.5%.

Kumar says with the creation of SwipeHQ Checkout, he is hoping to reduce the barriers to creating e-commerce sites for businesses by only charging a 2.75% flat per transaction cost and, for registered charities an even lower rate of just 0.65%.

"As charities compete for donations in a smaller pool of money due to tougher economic times a resource such as SwipeHQ Checkout can be extremely valuable for them. This may give them a new, more convenient way of receiving donations in an increasing cashless society, where previously this wasn’t affordable,” says Kumar.

Optimizer HQ was established in 2003 as a web development company and now provides a raft of ground-breaking, cloud based technologies to businesses who want to find and grow their customer base in the online market.

Kumar, 32, is the second youngest chief executive in the world to be listed on the Deutsche Boerse, behind Puma’s Jochen Zeitz.

Swipe HQ Checkout is the first credit card processing innovation to be released to market by Optimizer HQ. The company’s first product, Swipe HQ Reader, is awaiting the international announcement of new industry standards for processing of mobile card payments from credit card companies before it goes live.

For more information visit SwipeHQ.com.