Mobey Forum Examines the Mobile Payment Field to Find Banks’ Role

One thing is clear about mobile payments; mobile devices generally rule the field.

With mobile apps from individual stores like Starbucks to payment platforms connected to device makers like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, it’s not hard to see mobile is running the show.

That leaves short shrift for banks…or does it? Mobey Forum recently took a look at the field and brought out a new report talking about the banks’ role in mobile payments, or at least what it could be.

The Mobey Forum report, titled “Game of Phones: The Giants’ Power Plays in Mobile Payments,” reinforced the concept that the mobile market was currently on top, but didn’t necessarily have to be.

As Mobey Forum’s executive director Sirpa Nordlund pointed out, banks faced a choice: either develop tools that allowed for a “day-to-day interface” with current customers, or accept a future in which banks are little more than a “back office utility.”

Essentially, those who continue to delay in releasing a specific mobile payments application have already made the decision to be that back office utility, and the day must be seized to have any chance of being a significant player in a rapidly growing market.

The good news is that much of the heavy lifting has been done, and the way is clear for most anyone else to come in.

Apple Pay’s work convincing the market that mobile payments are viable and safe has left the market open to the notion of using a phone as a payment vector.

That means banks can step in and, using their enormous name recognition power, seize a chunk of the market. The marketing practically writes itself; you bank with us already, banks can say to potential customers, so why not mobile pay with us too?

One of the biggest concerns mobile payment users have is security. One of the biggest selling points a bank has is its ultra-secure, stodgy image.

Put the two together and it’s a match made in marketing heaven, as long as the mobile payment platform delivered works as well as the customers would like, and with enough locations accepting it to matter. Banks have a great opportunity to take a chunk of a growing market, and few businesses can reasonably pass up such a notion.