Revenue N/A Founded 2008 | Website chargesmart.com Type of business Private | |
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Industry Personal finance, Software, Consumer Internet, Credit Cards, Mortgage,
Online payments Key people Philip Mikal, COO
Mitch Friedman, Co-Founder Products Credit card funded bill payment services Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States | ||
ChargeSmart is a web-based e-commerce business allowing credit card funded bill payments to be made through the Internet. ChargeSmart serves as an alternative payment channel for companies in the mortgage, auto, student and utility industries that do not want to directly offer credit card payment as an option to their customers.
ChargeSmart has garnered media coverage from a number of blogs and media outlets such as Business Week, the San Francisco Business Times, Banks.com, InsideARM, American Banker, and the Sacramento Bee.
The company is located in San Francisco, California.
Background
ChargeSmart COO Philip Mikal was previously co-founder of another San Franscisco-based company, CardIt. CardIt attempted to launch a similar payment service in September 2007 and targeted one-time consumer mortgage payments. CardIt is no longer in business and, according to Housing Wire, had difficulties for catering to troubled mortgage borrowers. Mr. Mikal joined ChargeSmart as Chief Operating Officer August 11, 2008.
Based on several test transactions, the transaction fee plus insurance fee seems to come to 2.5% of the transaction, which means that the fees will outweigh the value of the "rewards" received on most credit cards.[source?]