Mobile Payment Magazine

New Report Focuses on NFC and Mobile Payments Landscape

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There is much buzz around the growth of mobile payments in the United States, with predictions that it will hit $214 billion by 2014, according to Aite Group.  But which of the many possible approaches — including integrated NFC, non-integrated contactless, bar codes, cloud-based solutions, and text messaging — is the best choice?

The Smart Card Alliance today released a white paper entitled, “The Mobile Payments and NFC Landscape: A U.S. Perspective.”

The white paper provides an overview of the current state of the market for mobile payments and NFC-enabled payment applications in the U.S., and evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of different mobile payment approaches.

“Technology is always changing, especially within the mobile and payments industries, so it is difficult to predict when and how mobile payments will become commonplace in the United States,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “The goal of this white paper is to help industry stakeholders understand the current mobile payments landscape, anticipate how mobile payments are likely to change, and appreciate the opportunities that mobile payments, and particularly NFC-enabled mobile contactless payments, present.”

Some of the topics covered in this snapshot of mobile payments include:

  • A description of the different types of mobile financial applications in use today
  • Discussion of the different mobile payments approaches with implementation examples
  • A summary of the merchant, consumer, issuer, and mobile operator requirements for NFC mobile proximity payments and the attendant benefits
  • An update on the status of Near-Field Communications (NFC) mobile proximity payments infrastructure
  • Evaluation of how different mobile payment approaches fulfill overall market requirements

Payments Council members involved in the development of this white paper included: Accenture; American Express; Apriva; Bank of America; Capgemini; Capital One; Connexem Consulting; CPI Card Group; Datacard Group; DeviceFidelity; Discover Financial Services; Gemalto; Giesecke & Devrient; Heartland Payment Systems; Infineon Technologies; INSIDE Secure; JPMorgan Chase; LTK Engineering Services; MasterCard Worldwide; NACHA; NagraID Security; NXP Semiconductors; Oberthur Technologies; Quadagno & Associates; Thales e-Security; WatchData Technologies USA; VeriFone; Visa Inc.; ViVOtech; and Mike Kutsch; Dale Laszig; and Chandra Srivastava.

Source: MarketWire

NFC-enabled Point of Sale Ready to Explode, Says Report

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Hosted POS Revenue Projections - AITESeeking to sell hardware and grow revenue, the major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)—VeriFone, Ingenico, and Hypercom—have developed and begun to implement business strategies that will drive near-field-communication (NFC) technologies into general availability in the United States, opening the door for a variety of new mobile marketing solutions enabled at the POS.

The current inflexibility of transaction-routing infrastructure ensures that existing authorization infrastructure will be unable to handle the new transaction types created by these marketing solutions. This will force the rapid evolution of a new set of hosted transaction-gateway and terminal-management solutions, with revenue opportunities for gateway providers approaching US$0.35 billion annually by 2015. Payments firms that miss the move will take a hit; merchant acquirers, independent sales organizations (ISOs), gateways, processors, and payment networks must develop a strategy that ensures delivery of flexible and centrally hosted POS environments.

A new report from Aite Group projects the deployment of mobile-capable hardware, software, and transaction-routing capabilities necessary to enable point-of-sale-integrated mobile marketing solutions and mobile payments in the United States. Based on more than 50 Aite Group interviews with industry stakeholders conducted from April through July 2011, the report also details the transformation of today’s point-of-sale (POS) infrastructure into tomorrow’s mobile environment.

“Current trends in the payments industry are driving a more complex point-of-sale infrastructure that will require POS services to be offered as hosted monthly services,” says Rick Oglesby, senior analyst with Aite Group and author of this report. “The POS terminal itself may soon become more similar to a cable TV box, opening a portal to a wealth of services to be accessed at the point of transaction. For payments companies, an opportunity exists to be the cable company itself, aggregating the various services in a gateway model and simplifying the way in which services can be accessed.”

Source: Aite Group

Develping Mobile Banking Channel for Corporate Clients is Top Prioirty for Bankers, Says Survey

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Developing a mobile banking channel for their corporate clients is a top priority for bankers, according to a recent survey by Fundtech. The results of the survey, taken among bankers on the topic of mobile banking,  show that many bankers think it has the potential to become an important competitive differentiator. By far, the major concern is related to security and fraud issues.

Key Findings

The survey of 267 bankers was fielded in March and has the following key findings:

  • 54% say that developing their mobile corporate banking services is a top or very important priority
  • 42% rated their customer’s interest as either extremely or very high
  • 31% believe that mobile corporate banking will become a competitive differentiator for their bank; however 38% see it becoming just another service delivery channel
  • 77% think fraud/security concerns are the biggest barriers to growth in mobile corporate banking.

George Ravich, Chief Marketing Officer of Fundtech comments: “The results of the survey show strong interest in developing the mobile corporate banking channel. One interesting dichotomy was revealed: while only 15% of those bankers surveyed see mobile corporate banking as a revenue opportunity, our recent survey done in partnership with Aite Group revealed that 49% of corporate treasurers are willing to pay for such services. This suggests that banks may still not yet fully realize the business opportunity for mobile banking.”

Fundtech develops transaction banking solutions that automate activities such as payments, cash management, settlement, liquidity management, and the financial supply chain.

Source: Fundtech

Webinar: U.S. Mobile Payments, The Time Has Come (Dec 16, 2010)

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Mobile payments will account for $214 billion by 2015, up from $16 billion in 2010, according to Aite Group, a research and advisory firm for the financial services industry. The company has conducted extensive interviews with industry stakeholders, and will present its findings: U.S. Mobile Payments: The Time Has Come.  During the presentation, research director Gwenn Bézard will define and segment the landscape of markets, trends, technologies and players in the mobile payment industry in the United States over the next four years.

Date: December 16, 2010, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. EST

Cost: Free to Aite Group’s Retail Banking subscribers and clients that purchased the research report, “U.S. Mobile Payments: The Time Has Come.” $250 for non-clients

More information: Aite Group