Mobile Payments Focused Urged For Chinese Merchants

There’s no doubt that people are turning to smartphones and other mobile devices more often for shopping.

Whether it’s paying for things purchased through via smartphone, or using a smartphone as a medium for payments systems, purchases and payments are getting more mobile-focused.

That’s leading to reports from the South China Morning Post that Chinese merchants are actively being encouraged to focus on mobile payments.

Currently, better than a third of online transactions are being made through mobile devices, and payment systems like Alibaba’s Alipay are leading the way.

This in turn is driving changes in the way such systems are presented and interacted with; while there’s a lot more screen real estate with PC operations, there’s a lot less for mobile devices, and that means things like manually inputting payment data are much harder on the mobile.

Integrated payment systems, therefore, are at something of a premium, and those who make it simpler to use the system are more likely to be rewarded with more users and more payments to process.

Companies like PayPal are working hard toward this end with things like PayPal’s One Touch payment system, which recently debuted in Hong Kong.

Simple one-click operations speed up the process and make it more convenient.

That kind of convenience, of course, needs to be measured against safety.

Storing one’s payment details centrally can make it much easier for the user to bring them out, but it can also leave that user at risk from cybercriminals who likewise want access to that payment data.

Still, when it comes to a small screen, it really is much more difficult to manually input that data.

That’s likely a good chunk of why so many mobile payments systems are turning to biometric security as a means to protect account details; it provides better security for the material in place, because the material is more immediately potentially useful to cybercriminals.

It’s clear that mobile payments won’t be going away any time soon, and thus it’s little surprise to see so much recommendation go out to Chinese businesses to better accommodate mobile payments.

This particular recommendation is likely good for most retailers out there, as this payment mechanism keeps gaining popularity.