- Banks, seeing a new way to purchase
- Credit cards company like Visa or Mastercard, seeing a potential threat to lower the number of card transactions
- Mobile devices companies, who could benefit
- All kinds of web companies, building apps, like Paypal, to grasp a part of it.
- Retailers, which are the final users, and who wants new way to decrease the cost of payment by making it more efficient (faster, and obviously cheaper).
But the market is yet to spike, as no one seem to agree on the terms. Also, I believe that it has not yet taken off as shoppers have not really seen the interest to switch to the new technology.
I read not so long ago a great article about this topic on the French website Les Echos. Its message is that mobile payment could improve customer relationship as it could provide a new shopper experience by using the data of the past transaction of one shopper. It could hence maybe provide better advices on what to buy, or discounts.
But I believe that actually what will be difficult to achieve:
- First of all, France has clear legislation limiting the use of financial information by financial institutions. Banks have already all the information they need, have the tools to analyse it but can't really do so, as it would cause privacy problem.
- Secondly, I think that entering shopper privacy by pushed marketing messages will be against mobile payment adoption. It is the reason why mobile marketing has not experienced such a high success. Text messages campaigns are intrusive, and difficult to be interesting.
- In terms of security, having no contact may seem not as secure as the credit card. Also, the mobile phone, if stolen, could be devastating: No tool to phone to cancel the card, unlimited access by the stealer of the information...
In order to actually force the market to benefit from mobile payment we need:
- A real captain to take over the investments, the campaign, and a clear approach (far to be won this one...). Too many people trying to win over the market.
- A secured technology (some improvements need to be done)
