Have you heard of the latest wallet? Which one? The NFC one? Or the cloud based?
The one from the web giant, the mobile operator joint venture or the alternative payments giant? Or was it the one from the merchant coalition?
It seems a day doesn’t go by without the announcement of a new mobile wallet scheme that will revolutionize payments and obsolete the leather wallet in the process. And these are not hungry start-ups trying to hit big with a new killer app. We are talking about the global leaders in web, mobile, retail and payments.
Soon you, me and millions of consumers will converge on our favorite merchants expecting to wave our mobile wallets and make quick, convenient payments. But will our mobile wallet be accepted?
Enabling the acceptance side of mobile commerce is just as important as enabling the consumer side in a world of global mobile wallet payments. A wallet app without acceptance is a dead app from the start. But if you are involved in the mobile commerce business you wouldn’t know it. Everything you hear about, is all about enabling the consumer.
How will the complexity of mobile commerce be managed in the merchant side?
The acceptance side of mobile commerce is, if anything, a lot more complex than the consumer side. A consumer will probably have one preferred wallet that he will use at any given time. But the merchant will be forced to accept multiple wallet apps in the same way it accepts multiple payment methods today.
That will turn the merchant POS into something like a smart POS, the merchant equivalent to a Smart Phone. But where is the merchant equivalent of an iTunes that will manage this smart device, provision all applications securely and keep all the apps updated?
Even if the merchant decides to accept just a single wallet – their preferred solution for mobile commerce – integration and management of this app is completely different from payment apps. The whole attraction of mobile wallets to consumers is in the mobile coupons and promotions, and none are accepted today at merchant systems.
Being at the forefront of this change, VeriFone was able to get first-hand experience enabling multiple wallets at the point of sale. 12 of the 14 retailers that launched Google Wallet and Google offers were enabled by VeriFone.
Like so many new technologies, the post-implementation side of mobile wallets is shiny and its potential unlimited, but there’s more behind the curtain that merchants need to know about. You can get that info from our latest white paper, “Any Wallet App or Program.” It will help you understand how to manage the complexity of mobile commerce in merchant systems and get ready to ride the mobile wallet wave coming your way!
how is the development of the merchants hardware expected over time.. Will a payment terminal look as today just with integrated NFC or will that change ?
Hi Jan. Chris Souther here. I sent your question over to our UK team and this is the response they gave me:
“Terminal development happens with the input of customer and partner user groups. We don’t design products w/o undertaking market research and incorporating user feedback. So the short answer is, that we just don’t know right now. However, our new VX Evolution devices include integrated NFC/contactless under the screen. However, as the industry evolves so will our payment devices, so while we may be unclear what future devices look like, we can at least imagine the sorts of functionality they will have.”
Hope that helps.
Thanks for your reply. Will be interesting to follow the development.
I believe when they say “working with Visa, American Express and Discover” they latlriley mean that they’re working with them to bring them to Google Wallet. Is there any word on when/if this will be rolled out to other countries? Specifically, will it ever be something independent of your phone carrier? I’d hate to be tied to a carrier because my credit/debit card is tied to them.