Digital Money World

Mobile Money, The Next Revolution

by Benson on January 8th, 2008

You walk into your grocery store, grab a few items placed in the cart, and push the cart to the counter to check out. Your cashier scans all the groceries you’ve picked up, and shows you the amount to pay. You whip up your mobile phone, key in a few buttons and in 5 seconds, the cashier nods, handing you a receipt.

This could be happening in most places, and in some countries already happening. Take a look at this photo on G-cash Philippines, accepting mobile payments for Chicken.

photo credit: rbapmas

I’m reading this really good document by KPMG on Mobile Payments in Asia Pacific where it mentions the different operations of employing current mobile technology on different market segments and the different countries. It’s no surprise that Japan and Korea are taking the lead in the employment of M-payments.

With the current 3G/ 3.5G(HSPDA) network, raking internet speeds of up to 14.4mbps isn’t a problem and you could do wonders with your phone. The big problem with such connection speed is your mobile phone’s battery lifespan, which takes a beating and drains up real quickly (and trust me, I know. My HTC Hermes lies flat pretty quickly)

Security is something that is definitely of a concern for mobile transactions of any market segments, be it B2B, B2C, P2P and more. Is a pin/ password coupled with a mobile phone with contactless IC chips enough to deter from thefts or any form of e-crime? It’s a big question.

The designs on how should M-payments and M-banking should really set the standard is a key issue. We know that Bank of America recently bragged about its I-Phone optimized homepage. Well, there should be really a W3 standard or somewhat for Mobile phone sites which should be quite tough given that all manufacturing mobile phones doesn’t exactly have standard screensizes and capabilities.

Nevertheless, we’re stepping into the zone and are edging closer to it. We’ll probably see digital currency giants like Paypal, E-gold, C-gold, Webmoney and more going into the mobile payment sector as well since this is a market that is lucrative in terms of payout and cannot be missed.

It’s only a matter of time when people don’t walk around with cash in their pocket anymore.

Share This

Related Stories

• Coca-Cola Vending Machine Sales via Mobile Phones
• PayPal Digital Money Now Helping The City Of New Orleans
• Today’s Internet Money Revolution
• Mobile Wallet User Base Quickly Doubling To 4 Million
• PayPal Partners With GPShopper And Introduces PayPal Mobile Checkout

POSTED IN: Mobile Payments