The Mobile Wallet
Alex Franks, director at Blyk, says the next decade will see mobile payments become an everyday reality – you’ll use your mobile to buy the things you want, whether that’s on the high street or the internet…
In my last post I wrote about the developments that we all see coming in mobile technology and I argue, with myself mostly, that these developments will jumpstart mobile ad spend and the long awaited revolution in mobile advertising.
Let’s have a look at one aspect of this revolution in a bit more detail – mobile payments. Now, retailers, as well as consumers, stand to benefit from the mobile payment revolution.
Through fast, contactless transactions, retailers can greatly increase footfall into their stores. The speed of mobile payments is substantially faster than messing about with your small change or chip and PIN systems, therefore mobile payments have the potential to reduce queues, improve the customer experience and allow more purchases to be made in a shorter space of time, lunch hours for example.
Furthermore, since tickets and coupons can be sent directly to NFC handsets via mobile messaging, retailers will need to spend less time and money printing and posting tickets to customers, which is also much more environmentally friendly – tick!
The effect of mobile payment technology on consumers will also be revolutionary. The technology will allow transactions to become faster, easier and more straightforward to monitor.
Transactions are secure because a PIN can be embedded into the handset in the same way as many consumers are already doing within many apps.
Consumers will also be able to store coupons, vouchers and store or operator loyalty schemes in one place, their handset.
The implementation of mobile payments across the UK requires banks to extend contactless infrastructure to support NFC.
Companies such as Eagle Eye Solutions and I-Movo will also need to get their products integrated into many the big retailers. The recent announcement that Sir Terry Leahy had invested in Eagle Eye Solutions and joined their board is a real statement of intent in this space – the ex CEO of Tesco would seem to know his way around the retail space!
In addition, consumers will demand a choice of handsets that support NFC transactions. Orange have recently started selling the NFC enabled Samsung Tocco, and other vendors are starting to make significant investments in the technology. Juniper Research predict that 25% of all smartphones will be NFC enabled by 2014.
Of course Google have spotted the opportunity here and they have launched their operator agnostic Google Wallet that NMA’s Ronan Shields describes as leading a gold rush in mobile marketing.
Completely independent of this I’m sure Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone have also just announced a Joint Venture to create a standardised platform and coherent measurement system for mobile contactless payment that will roll everything I have just described into a one stop shop for advertisers and agencies.
Tom Alexander, ex-CEO of Everything Everywhere, commented: “This ground-breaking new business will unlock the true potential of commerce in the wire-free world.”
Examples of big business getting behind mobile money are endless it seems but one more for fun – PayPal president Scott Thompson in a June 29 post on the company’s blog – “We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. – from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet”.
The company is so sure about its no-cash prediction, it is asking five of its San Francisco Bay area employees to “use only digital currencies to pay for all their purchases” in a pseudo-competition (read viral marketing stunt) that will be announced on July 11. Perhaps something for the good people at Blyk HQ to consider in Q4 this year – one for our next company meeting I think.
The next decade will see mobile payments become an everyday reality. Today you pay for things by cash or on your credit card. Tomorrow, you’ll use your mobile to buy the things you want, whether that’s on the high street or the internet.
Read Blyk’s blog here.