London’s Real Food Festival was the primary big outing for UK-based mobile payments platform Judo.

What makes its offer different to many we have seen lately is that the vendor doesn’t should buy a brand new piece of apparatus to take card payments.

Customers can either download the app and link up with the trader to make a payment – although that is currently only available to iOS users – or make a phone call to the Judo number in the event that they are using some other handset. Here they enter the merchant’s ID after which add their card details in the event that they are a primary time user after which the quantity payable. They’re going to then receive a text to verify. The app is free for traders, but there’s a transaction fee of two.9 per cent +29p with out a charge for refunds or failed transactions.

The company was founded two years ago and it has concerned with going ‘door-to-door’ to get traders like convenience stores and taxi drivers to sign-up before going public. The CEO, Dennis Jones, saw a niche inside the British marketplace for an exceptionally cheap alternative to bank card machines or even other mobile payments firms.

Jones said: “Our partnership with the genuine Food Festival is a lovely example of the way small traders and retailers can accept cards using only cell phones, even if they’re trading in a short lived setting.  Visitors to events just like the Real Food Festival is probably not carrying enough cash to pay for the tasty goods that they see on display.  By registering with Judo, traders could make sure they never miss a sale.”