Investment in Mobile Payments Goes Global
It would be easy to dismiss the move to mobile payments as a largely North American phenomenon, but in so doing, a large portion of the mobile payments world would be willfully ignored. That’s seldom good practice, and new report from ACI Worldwide and Ovum discovered just how bad an idea it would really be, as mobile payments technology investment is going global in a big way.
The report, which examined the positions of over 700 retail executives worldwide in a host of different substrata of industry, revealed that better than two out of three retailers throughout Europe and the Middle East alone were planning to put more investment into mobile payments systems over the course of the next 18 to 24 months.
That’s a big enough step, but makes sense in light of the several possible subsectors involved, including things like loyalty programs for smart cards, for real time clearing and settlement, or for mobile QR use, each a field that’s seen plenty of gain elsewhere in the last several months.
The report carried on from there, though, showing that even security concerns weren’t stopping some companies. 93 percent of retailers believed that consumers want more choice in payment, a point which is probably true; we’ve seen it often enough, and consumers appear interested in using PayPal at the gas station or the like. 78 percent of retailers regard mobile payments as a clear part of an overall strategy.
But while there are plenty of expansion plans, there are also many who would expand if not for a few simple points, perhaps the biggest of which is security.
51 percent of retailers were citing security considerations as reasons not to expand into the new technologies, a move that by some reports is actually keeping the retailers in less secure platforms that are more “tried and true,” so to speak, even though significant gains have been made in terms of security in mobile.
Issues of cost represented problems here as well, with payment costs proving surprisingly high.
49 percent reported costs went up, and of those, 10 percent reported payment cost hikes of over six percent.
The security concerns might be addressed by some simple education tactics, but the rate hikes are perhaps the more disturbing. The problem here is that, in order to advance the mobile payment concept, we need businesses willing to put the technology to work.
While many of the concerns about security could readily be put to rest with outreach programs, it’s much more difficult to readily address issues of payment costs without clear commitments to cut costs from mobile payment processors.
If these platforms start cutting into the bottom line, then we’re going to see people moving away from mobile, which is about the last thing a lot of people want, particularly customers.
This could be the start of a rather disturbing turn of events, and it’s a point that needs to be watched carefully lest this turn into something much worse.