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.
Google Launches Mobile Wallet
In May Google announced its mobile wallet, which uses NFC for tap and pay, in collaboration with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data.
According to a recent blog post, Google is releasing the first version of the app to Sprint, so Google Wallet will be available on Sprint Nexus S 4G phones.
With the app, customers can pay with a Citi MasterCard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of credit cards.
Osama Bedier, Vice President of Payments wrote in a recent blog post that “Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet.
Source: Official Google Blog