Mobile Payments, Digital Wallets and NFC Technology

Mobile Payments: For many of us, it’s very hard to differentiate this bouquet of services such as mobile money, mobile banking, mobile payments, mobile commerce, mobile microinsurance services, mobile microsavings and credit services, mobile data science, and mobile financial services after building a strong mobile credit bureau (mobile financial clearing bureau)..  This part focuses on mobile payments and the opportunities that come out of this service, as well as those opportunities that got added under the Mobile Financial Services umbrella as an independent service.

How I envision these services may be different for some, but I am sure most of us have the same mindset. I have a very strong belief that “if you are looking for the next big thing and you are also looking where everyone else is, you are looking in the wrong place”. If we draw a hierarchy of such services, it will look something like the one below.

Excitement increases many folds when the big boys get into play, i.e., Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung, and show the industry a path to walk on and a guarantee that it will have lots of action and fun (sometime a little more exciting, i.e., fireworks). What is happening in the mobile payment market as of today can be easily compared with a tsunami, which is not a new word in a technical domain.

This is one of several currently available UDP-based transfer protocols that were developed for high-speed transfer over network paths that have a high bandwidth delay. With the power of mobile payments solutions, the end-user can easily derive benefits from services like airtime top-up, bill payment, and merchant payments.

The mobile payments platform usually allows various users to access services via multiple channels like the Web, mobile app, POS, USSD, NFC, QR Codes, SMS, etc. Against escalating security threats on mobile payments, empowerment of merchants, acquirers, and service providers with new commerce opportunities and experiences in store and protection is the highest priority or should be the highest priority for any mobile payment solution system.

Never blindly trust or get overconfident in any situation, like I was reading some story on the internet in which somebody said on the upper side of the Titanic (while it was sinking): “If we are sinking, why are we hundreds of feet above water then?” Some of the best deals around discounts and loyalty-point schemes should appear in the mobile payments market as marketers embrace this new way to engage a customer.

How I envision these services may be different for some but I am sure most of us have the same mindset. I have a very strong belief in “If you are looking for the next big thing, and you are also looking where everyone else is, you are looking in the wrong place”. If we draw a hierarchy of such services it will look like something as below.

Excitement increases many folds when the big Bro’s get into play i.e. Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung and show the industry a path to walk on and a guarantee that will have lots of action and fun (Some time little more exciting i.e. fireworks). With the power of mobile payments solutions, the end-user can easily derive benefits from services like Airtime top-up and Bill Payment, Merchant Payments.

The mobile payments platform usually allows various users to access services via multiple channels like Web, Mobile App, POS, USSD, NFC, QR Codes and SMS etc. Against escalating security threats on mobile payments, empowerment of merchants, acquirers, and service providers with new commerce opportunities and experiences in store and protection is the highest priority or should be the highest priority for any mobile payment solution system.

Never blind trust or get overconfident on any situation like I was reading some story on the internet in which somebody said on the upper side of Titanic (While it was sinking), if we are sinking why are we hundreds of feet above water then. Some of the best deals around discounts and loyalty-point schemes should appear in the mobile payments market as marketers embrace this new way to engage a customer.

Mobile payments are an opportunity for product and service companies, merchants, billers, service sellers, banks, and telcos to engage with customers in real time. Mobile payment through mobile wallets, straight from a bank account, or through a soft credit card or system is another interesting question or point of debate, as each one has its own pros and cons. Mobile payments may or may not happen through a mobile wallet attached to it, which is very interesting and debatable, as mentioned before, but before we go there, we need to see the reasoning for both scenarios. First, with mobile wallets, the questions are now how to secure them, how to trust them, and what will happen to unused money.

In the second scenario, if there is no mobile wallet and money is pulled directly from a soft card or bank account every time a transaction happens, New specifications and use cases on the interface level are being released for mobile payment adoption and implementation, which continue to increase. According to survey data from Google, there are currently over one billion NFC-enabled devices and almost the same number of 3G POS machines in the global marketplace, expected to reach 2 billion by the end of 2016.

Benefits that can be offered are customer loyalty points or some discounted coupons, which create a direct relationship between consumer and merchant and offer a seamless way to purchase right from their mobile device. This process not only ensures spending for that particular merchant but also locks the consumer on his account and gets to know his spending habits and tastes.

At any time, we should not forget about safeguarding sensitive information with encryption and tokenization, and wherever it’s applicable, it should meet the latest PCI requirements (PCI 4.X approved). For merchants, they need some support in terms of their self-care portals, which should have a simple, intuitive user interface for more consistent and seamless experiences. Multiple form factors for merchants make a variety of customer interactions possible. The software application should be powerful enough to drive and empower merchants for their day-to-day needs at their end and control things like the reversal, promotion, and evolution of each payment terminal in their store or stores.

Conclusion – Where do we go when the era of central banking dies? Because it’s about to die — by decentralizing organisms that are dynamically scalable and software that can be modified. I am very confident that software systems can do adoption jobs dynamically. As mobile payment systems head toward primetime, we could be witnessing the beginning of a profound shift in payment culture.

As mobile payments evolve, technology providers and financial institutions are working on ways to enhance security and boost customer trust. Precautions include adding new layers of fraud protection, such as tokenizations, where transactions can be completed without sharing sensitive data like a credit card number and its expiration date.