Mobile Payment Magazine

Worldwide Mobile Payment Volume Up 76% to Reach $86 Billion in 2011

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Worldwide mobile payment users will surpass 141.1 million in 2011, a 38.2 percent increase from 2010, when mobile payment users reached 102.1 million, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide mobile payment volume is forecast to total $86.1 billion, up 75.9 percent from 2010 volume of $48.9 billion.

Despite these strong growth projections, Gartner analysts said the mobile payment market is growing slower than expected.

“In developing markets, despite favorable conditions for mobile payment, growth is not as strong as was anticipated. Many service providers are yet to adapt their strategies to local requirements, and success models from Kenya and the Philippines are unlikely to be translated to other markets,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. While developing markets have favorable conditions for mobile payments, such as high penetration of mobile devices and low banking penetration, this is no guarantee of success, unless service providers adapt their strategies to local market requirements.”

“In developed markets, companies are trumpeting the prospects of Near Field Communication (NFC) without realizing the complexity of the service model. We believe mass market adoption of NFC payments is at least four years away,” Ms. Shen said. “The biggest hurdle is the need to change user behavior by convincing consumers to pay with mobile phones instead of cash and cards.”

Gartner expects Short Message Service (SMS) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) to remain the dominant access technologies in developing markets due to the constraints of mobile phones. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) will remain the preferred mobile access technology in developed markets, where the mobile Internet is commonly available and activated on the phone. Mobile app downloads and mobile commerce are the main drivers of WAP payments, and WAP will account for almost 90 percent of all mobile transactions in North America and about 70 percent in Western Europe in 2011.

Money transfers and prepaid top-ups will drive transaction volumes in developing markets. These are seen as the “killer apps” in developing markets, where people value the convenience of sending money to relatives and topping up mobile accounts. This is most obvious in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where these two services will account for 54 percent and 32 percent of all transactions in 2011.

“Thanks to the success of mobile application stores, such as Apple’s App Store, and the efforts in driving mobile sales by major retailers, such as Amazon and eBay, merchandise purchases far outweigh other use cases in developed markets, which include North America and Western Europe,” Ms. Shen said. “We predict that in 2011, merchandise purchases will account for 90 percent and 77 percent of all transactions in North America and Western Europe, respectively.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Market Trends: Mobile Payments Worldwide, 2011.”

Mobile Payments: Introduction

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Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer, and mobile wallet generally refer to payment services operated under financial regulation and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit cards, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods.

Although the concept of using non-coin-based currency systems has a long history, it is only recently that the technology to support such systems has become widely available.

In developing countries mobile payment solutions have been deployed as a means of extending financial services to the community known as the “unbanked” or “underbanked,” which is estimated to be as much as 50% of the world’s adult population, according to Financial Access’ 2009 Report “Half the World is Unbanked”. These payment networks are often used for micropayments.

There are four primary models for mobile payments:

Some mobile payment solutions are also used in developing countries for micropayments.

Source: Wikipedia

SMS, USSD Based Mobile Payments

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The consumer sends a payment request via an SMS text message or an USSD to a short code and a premium charge is applied to their phone bill or their mobile wallet. The merchant involved is informed of the payment success and can then release the paid for goods.

Since a trusted delivery address has typically not been given these goods are most frequently digital with the merchant replying using a Multimedia Messaging Service to deliver the purchased music, ringtones, wallpapers etc.

A Multimedia Messaging Service can also deliver barcodes which can then be scanned for confirmation of payment by a merchant. This is used as an electronic ticket for access to cinemas and events or to collect hard goods.

Transactional payments have been popular in Asia and Europe but are now being overtaken by other mobile payment methods such as mobile web payments (WAP), mobile payment client (Java ME, Android…) and Direct Mobile Billing for a number of reasons:

  1. Poor reliability – transactional payments can easily fail as messages get lost.
  2. Slow speed – sending messages can be slow and it can take hours for a merchant to get receipt of payment. Consumers do not want to be kept waiting more than a few seconds.
  3. Security – The SMS/USSD encryption ends in the radio interface, then the message is a plaintext.
  4. High cost – There are many high costs associated with this method of payment. The cost of setting up short codes and paying for the delivery of media via a Multimedia Messaging Service and the resulting customer support costs to account for the number of messages that get lost or are delayed.
  5. Low payout rates – operators also see high costs in running and supporting transactional payments which results in payout rates to the merchant being as low as 30%. Usually around 50%
  6. Low follow-on sales – once the payment message has been sent and the goods received there is little else the consumer can do. It is difficult for them to remember where something was purchased or how to buy it again. This also makes it difficult to tell a friend and friend.

Source: Wikipedia

Mobile Web Payments (WAP)

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The consumer uses web pages displayed or additional applications downloaded and installed on the mobile phone to make a payment. It uses WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) as underlying technology and thus inherits all the advantages and disadvantages of WAP. However, using a familiar web payment model gives a number of proven benefits:

  1. Follow-on sales where the mobile web payment can lead back to a store or to other goods the consumer may like. These pages have a URL and can be bookmarked making it easy to re-visit or share with friends.
  2. High customer satisfaction from quick and predictable payments
  3. Ease of use from a familiar set of online payment pages

However, unless the mobile account is directly charged through a mobile network operator, the use of a credit/debit card or pre-registration at online payment solution such as PayPal is still required just as in a desktop environment.

Mobile web payment methods are now being mandated by a number of mobile network operators.

A number of different actual payment mechanisms can be used behind a consistent set of web pages.

Direct Operator Billing

A direct connection to the operator billing platform requires integration with the operator, but provides a number of benefits:

  1. Simplicity – the operators already have a billing relationship with the consumers, the payment will be added to their bill.
  2. Instantaneous payments giving the highest customer satisfaction
  3. Accurate responses showing success and reasons for failure (no money for example)
  4. Security to protect payment details and consumer identity
  5. Best conversion rates from a single click-to-buy and no need to enter any further payment details.
  6. Reduced customer support costs for merchants since customers will complain to the operator.

It has however a drawback, the payout rate will be much lower than with other payment providers. Examples from a popular provider :

  • 92% with Paypal
  • 84 to 86% with Credit Card
  • 45 to 91.7% with Operator billing in the US, UK and different smaller european countries, but usually around 60%
  • However, there is in the world one exception to this rule, in UK it might give more payout percentage for a merchant to bill through the Payforit system than with a credit card.

Credit Card

A simple mobile web payment system can also include a credit card payment flow allowing a consumer to enter their card details to make purchases. This process is familiar but any entry of details on a mobile phone is known to reduce the success rate (conversion) of payments.

In addition, if the payment vendor can automatically and securely identify customers then card details can be recalled for future purchases turning credit card payments into simple single click-to-buy giving higher conversion rates for additional purchases.

Online Wallets

Online companies like PayPal, Amazon Payments, mHITs and Google Checkout also have mobile options. Here is the process :

First Payment

  • User registers, inputs his phone number, the provider sends him a SMS with a PIN
  • User enters the received PIN, authenticating the number.
  • User inputs his credit card info (or another payment method) if necessary. (Not necessary if account already existing) and validates payments

Subsequent payments :

  • The user re enters his PIN to authentify

Requesting a PIN is known to lower the success rate (conversion) for payments. These systems can be integrated with directly or can be combined with operator and credit card payments through a unified mobile web payment platform.

Source: Wikipedia

Using Your Phone as a Credit Card

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Mobile payments – simply using your mobile to pay for something – is relatively new but already one of the fast growing alternative payment methods catching on in Europe and Asia.  Juniper Researchers estimate that mobile payments in the combined global market is forecast to reach over $600 billion worldwide by 2013. What do mobile payments mean in real terms and what options are already out there?

By 2013, according to Juniper Researchers, this type of payment in the global combined payments market could grow from its current $170 billion to over $600 billion. So what are mobile payments and what are the options? There are four primary methods for mobile payments :

Direct Mobile Billing is used as an option at checkout on e-commerce sites involving a PIN and a password. It is deemed secure, fast, convenient and much easier to use than online payment methods such as PayPal. This method is very popular in many parts of Asia and the preferred method of payment for purchases with digital content.

Mobile Web Payments (WAP) where the user has already downloaded applications onto their mobiles to enable payment to be made. Again this method is reportedly easy to use with high reported follow-on sales and good customer reviews.

Premium SMS based payments can be made when the user sends their payment request via SMS text message or they can use a short code and a premium charge is then added to their phone bill. The payment information is then relayed back to the retailer and the sale is completed. This type of payment can be time-consuming if the text messaging speed is slow to send and this method is a less popular option than mobile web payments and direct mobile billing.

Contactless Near Field Communication (NFC) is used by a consumer with a mobile equipped with smartcard waves near a reader module and can be used in actual stores or for transportation services. The payment can be then deducted from a pre-paid account, bank account or charged to the mobile bill. Whilst popular in Japan this method of mobile payment requires a complex supporting infrastructure. This is probably the least popular method in global terms.

Source: TXT2Get —
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