Next generation payments solution

mmoin — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 07:46:00 GMT

During the recently concluded conference I was talking to architects, CIOs, CTOs and technical decision makers from variety of global banks and retail organizations. We were discussing what the next generation payments will look like. I think that NFC embedded Mobile payments will be the ultimate payments solution of future, in other words the mobile wallet which can replace the physical wallet is the way to go. Some attendees disagreed and their point was that it might work in North America, but not necessarily will work in the developing nations. Their point was that for developing nations we need a cheap solution where smartphones should not be a requirement. So they felt that a simple phone based or SMS based solution is the way to go. They felt that a customer calls a phone number, enters the amount and enters another phone to transfer funds to another phone account. There is no need for NFC chips in the phones. I still think that this use exprience of making phone calls may work in developing countries, but may not work in the developed countries where consumers like to not make calls if they don't need to and also the process of making calls will slow down the whole retail check-out process.

IMO, in North America, the NFC based mobile payment solution is the way to go, where it'll speed up the service, replace the physical wallet and provide additional services to consumers.

What do you think will be the next generation payment solution.

ARC Thoughts : mobile phone

Next generation payments solution