On the eve of the Missouri Restaurant Association Inaugural Ball, FreedomPay, a world leader in payments innovation, has joined the celebration with the introduction of VIBE. The new mobile platform represents a significant step forward in the evolution of mobile commerce.

"St. Louis is the perfect city to launch VIBE,” says Tom Durovsik, CEO of FreedomPay. “It is a tight community with strong loyalty and a growing techno-savvy population. We are bringing VIBE to St. Louis with leading merchants, including Companion Bread, Chandler Hill Winery, and a broad array of merchants coming on board.”

VIBE is offering merchants three reasons to get on board: a cloud-based application that offers merchants direct access to consumers' mobile phones; integration with existing merchant systems, absolutely no new hardware, or new steps for employees; and centralization of all gateway processing and security solutions with a single provider, while simplifying costly PCI DSS compliance.

Even more compelling, VIBE offers merchants the opportunity to join the fastest-growing consumer segment—in-store mobile payments and incentives, which is projected to grow 137 percent annually over the next five years, according to Forrester.

With VIBE, merchants can offer laser-targeted incentives with alerts based on a dizzying array of factors, including favorites, GPS location, weather, time of day, and more. 

VIBE merchants can "launch" promotions instantly and track success in real time, fueling offers that are successful and ending or tweaking those that are not.

It also creates a way to offer short-lived promotions when business is slow. Restaurants with open tables at 5 p.m. can offer incentives to those within a five-mile radius, ending once the tables are full.

"Our entry to St. Louis is receiving strong merchant backing from a broad array of merchants, including quick-serve restaurants, table-service venues, and retail,” says Julie Douglas, vice president of sales.