Mobile transactions is more complicated, and interesting, than it first appears or sounds. Juniper Research predicts that by 2011:
“Person-to-Person (P2P) fund transfers and mobile payments in the developing world, together with the commercialization of NFC based mobile payments, will generate transactions worth approximately $22bn.”
If you look closely at the above sentence, you will see that there is a lot to consider:
- Person to Person fund transfers, and account, digital money and security implications
- Mobile payments, digital money, and related implications
- Commercialization of NFC, from end-users to merchants, and credit card companies
- Developing world, but we don’t have to go that far to realize the potential of mobile transactions
- Connectivity, short range (such as NFC) and over the Internet, and network carrier implications
- Security – authentication, authorization, transport, on-device
- Integration, with POS readers, POS, merchants, merchant banks and other
- Educating the end-user
And as important is the following question on What is going to trigger people to use the above? Is it convenience? Or is it security?, or will it just happen?
To explore this topic, I’ve created the Mobile Transactions page.
ceo
Interesting post.
One of the prime adoption drivers may well be guest workers sending money to their home country. This may sound like a niche but it’s actually big. There is a whole alternative ecosystem around people who can not open a bank account, have a phone subscription, etc. Many companies are making a lot of money from providing services to this market.
When a person sees up to 10% of his/her paycheck go pay fees to money transfer services and the like, that pain is all the trigger you need.
A good mobile phone solution has the potential for disruptive change in this area.