Veme E-pay is a combination of a portable charger and a bank card reader. Its main body functions as an average mobile phone charger and a magnetic reading head placed on one side is for swiping bank cards (as you can see below). It’s smaller and thinner than an iPhone 5.
The mobile payments solution is powered by Lakala, one of the leading digital payments services in China. That means users of E-pay have to have a Lakala app in their smartphones for processing payments.
The gadget isn’t yet on the market. It will be priced RMB 1000 – 2000, as its staff told me at MacWorld Asia 2013.
Veme, focusing on integrating different mobile products into one, is a brand established by a Shenzhen-based electronics manufacturer in 2012. Its parent company, founded in 2004, has been producing electronics accessories for mobile phones and automobiles.
Lakala was also founded in 2004. Apart from software, Lakala provides convenience stores or any merchants with hardware, from POS to Square-like gadget, for accepting mobile payments.