Looking Forward to 2012: The Continued Rise of Mobile Payments
Posted by Britney Chan on Fri, Dec 30, 2011
How mobile payments, NFC and person-to-person apps will change the way that people pay each other in the coming year.
Okay, so cash isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, but 2012 looks to be a pivotal year in the transition towards a world where we have options besides just cash and credit.
What’s wrong with the way things are? Let’s start with cash. It’s dirty, it costs a lot to withdraw from the ATM, nobody will reimburse you if it’s stolen, not to mention that walking around with a bulging wallet seems strangely anachronistic in a world where super-slim smartphones do everything from recording video to telling you where your friends are eating dinner.
So, what’s going to happen in 2012?
If anything, it’s companies’ eagerness for a piece of of the mobile payments pie that’s keeping NFC (near field communication) technology from really taking off, as evidenced by Google and Verizon’s spat over putting Google Wallet on the new Galaxy Nexus. Yes, it’s a painful delay, but it also legitimizes the entire market — giant corporations don’t fight tooth and nail over something that they don’t think is going to be profitable.
Even more encouraging is the rise of mobile products, which lets merchants run credit cards through their smartphones. The old 9-to-5 employment model where you get a gold watch after 40 years is dead. More people than ever are working as independent contractors, which means more people need easy ways to get paid.
Another area where we can expect to see big changes? Person-to-person payments. This year saw a huge jump in products that let you transfer money from one bank account to another.
After using Chase’s QuickPay to pay rent, the idea of writing and ripping out a check seems woefully outdated. Other banks are also jumping on the person-to-person payment trend, meaning by the end of 2012 you may never have to write a check again.
In 2011, PayPal broke out several intriguing new products, including a Facebook payment app and NFC Android-to-Android payments, all of which don’t bode well for the future of cash and checks. In certain tech-savvy social circles, I’m sure there are people who barely even touch a credit card, let alone cash.
Don’t get me wrong — I’ve read the reports about the slow adoption of mobile payments in 2012. But we have to remember what we’re comparing the current progress to.
Five years ago, you needed cash to pay a New York City cab driver, lest you get an earful of angry epithets. Today, you can simply pass your iPhone near the MasterCard PayPass terminal installed in every cab and your fare is paid. No, it’s not the universal standard, but it’s still pretty impressive.
ChargeAnywhere smartphones and person-to-person payment apps aren’t as ubiquitous as analysts would like, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t on our way to a future where all of our transactions are done through computers and smartphones. The more accessible these technologies become to smaller banks and merchants, the closer we’ll be to a more convenient, cash-free world.
Source: Techland