Business

Wallets go digital

Move over, plastic!

Smartphones have already “replaced” cameras, video recorders, music devices — and credit cards are next.

A report by Juniper Research estimates that 1 in 4 US consumers are anticipated to use their NFC (Near Field Communication)-enabled mobile phones to pay for goods in-store by 2017. This year, it stands at just 2 percent.

NFC chips are built into most new smartphones (excluding iPhones at present). The chips allow consumers to securely complete purchases, as well as track coupons and earn awards.

The eighth annual Consumer Payments Survey released recently by IDC Financial Insights confirms that mobile payment activity has nearly doubled. Thirty-three percent of the poll’s respondents reported making transactions with their devices.

Of those that had made a mobile payment, more than half used PayPal Mobile (56 percent), with Amazon Payments and Apple’s iTunes service statistically tied at about 40 percent.

Cellphone companies like Sprint, AT&T and Verizon; credit-card businesses Visa and MasterCard; and technology providers like Google, PayPal and eBay all are striving to make their mobile payment method the most convenient.

But a lack of standardized software across retailers is what is delaying rapid adoption of mobile payment methods on the part of consumers.

“Until there’s a standardized approach . . . it will take awhile,” says Rick Oglesby, senior analyst at Aite Group.

According to Oglesby, currently decisions about what technology equipment or transaction software will be used are made by individual retailers like Starbucks, which has introduced a consumer-friendly mobile-payments method.

In fact, there is a variety of businesses going after the mobile-payment space with various approaches.

PayPal, for example, requires point-of-sale technology on the part of retailers to scan and complete a transaction. It enables connection to consumer payment information without actually touching one’s card credentials.

Phone distributors attempt to make the phone the key component. ISIS is a system supported by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. The Sprint Mobile Wallet is based on a chip within a mobile device, which enables consumers to utilize Google Wallet or any of its competitors.

In any event, the future is headed this way, and it’s on the express track: Companies like Visa and MasterCard are creating deadlines for retailers to have payment-processing platforms in place by April 2013.

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