Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
CurrentC to Launch in Single Market in Summer 2015
Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a group of large U.S. merchants, said Monday it expects to launch an early version of its CurrentC mobile payment app mid-year in an unnamed, mid-sized market.
The group unveiled CurrentC in September, saying it had already launched the payment service by that time in private pilot mode in select, unnamed locations, with plans for regional and national rollouts in 2015. [Read more…]
The Key Players in Mobile Payments in 2015
As it becomes clear that mobile payments will dominate peer-to-peer money transfers and point-of-sale transactions in the future, the battle for mobile payment market share is heating up.
Competition is stiff in this emerging market, and for good reason. The chart below illustrates the growth that is expected from mobile payments over the next few years, which is nothing short of impressive.
There are several key players in the battle for our mobile payment transactions. Let’s take a look at each one. [Read more…]
CurrentC Is The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt To Kill Apple Pay And Credit Card Fees
Long before Apple Pay, big brick-and-mortar retail chains were conspiring to sidestep the typical 2% to 3% fees they’re charged by credit card companies when consumers pay with credit. A company called MCX (Merchant Customer Exchange), spearheaded by Walmart, was started to build a mobile payment solution that would become an app called CurrentC that’s preparing to launch, but is already in the app stores.
[Read more…]