One step closer to mobile wallet...

The fact that Orange is launching an NFC-enabled Samsung handset underlines the belief that mobile payments is an area full of opportunity and has potential to take a large share of the payments market. Developments that have been made in the area of e-money only go to highlight the fact that the move towards a cashless society is one that consumers are already embracing and mobile payments is just the natural and inevitable evolution of that. As consumers increasingly look to more convenient ways of paying and managing their money, mobile payments is the innate choice given that besides your wallet, the mobile phone is the only other thing you daren’t leave your house without. In addition to the mobile wallet, I can envisage other handy payment innovations such as prepaid cards increase in popularity giving rise to the ‘home ATM’, whereby consumers will top up their electronic cash via their laptops.

Yes there are hurdles, as there is with any form of payment, but they need to be put into context. While the security of contactless payments has been flagged as one of the major barriers to the widespread adoption of this pay-as-you go payment method, we actually need a touch of realism, here.  If you take cash out from an ATM and lose your wallet you lose it, period. Surely the best use of these new technologies is that as or PC becomes an ATM, on the kitchen table in my house today, we can transfer the cash we require to our phones as we choose. Of course I may lose my phone and someone may find it and get a few free cups of coffee, but they won’t find my credit cards. And if I do lose my phone I can get all the unspent cash back, unlike of course the position with my wallet,

In 2001 I created the Internet Payments guarantee at Worldpay and today we are repeating the exercise with VoicePay, and whilst I am fortunate that I already have my own in home ATM, we urgently need wider consumer adoption to drive the business uptake, as I still had to have £2.70 for a large cappuccino this morning!