For most users, a mobile wallet is a thing that’s used to pay money to businesses, or sometimes to people directly, a kind of proxy for cash and the standard leather wallet.

Some, however, believe that the biggest advantage to the mobile wallet may have nothing at all to do with cash. It’s the non-payment side of mobile payments, and it could be a bigger market than anyone expected.

Payments, of course, are the part where cash is handled. Non-payments, however, encompass a lot more than just the disbursal and retrieval of cash.

Non-payments includes things like storing loyalty cards for different businesses and allowing users to bring them out as need be, accounting for new purchases and notifying the user at the point when a benefit is reached.

It’s these points that are already showing value for businesses—just look at how places like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts have incorporated non-payment features into a payment app—and the more these features are brought into the game, the more value the concept has for users.

That’s a meaty point; a payments app that only does payments only does one thing: replaces the cash in a user’s wallet. Great from a security standpoint, but when that’s the only thing a mobile payments system does, users look at it and think, great, but what else does it do?

When that same app also manages loyalty or tells you where the nearest store is or does anything like that, suddenly it takes on a new importance.

Remember that most users will only use about three different mobile payment apps on average, so the better a job one can do of offering more than just payments, the better the chance that will be one of the apps most often used.

This can go too far, of course, but the more functions, the better the chance of differentiation.

Great news for users out there, as the more non-payment functions are added, the better the overall value will be for the user.

Soon, we’ll likely have even more choices available in the mobile payments arena, and the farther we go, the more likely it’ll be that our choices will all come down to what mobile payments app is offering the best in non-payment services.