The future of mobile payments is now

If you follow us here on Payment Magnates, you will notice that we have lately been discussing quite a bit about companies shifting to mobile solutions. It seems like every day we are reporting on new ventures and innovations in the world of mobile online Payments , and from what we are seeing, the news is not likely to change in the near future.

Super Monitoring, a company which specializes in offering web statistics, as of October 1, 2013, provided these numbers:

• 56% of people own a smartphone
• 50% of mobile phone users, use mobile devices as their primary Internet source
• 80% of time on mobile devices is spent inside apps
• 72% of tablet owners purchase online from their tablets each week.

In addition to those impressive numbers, it was also shown that as of June this year, mobile web browsing has surpassed desktop browsing in the US, 55% to 45% respectively.

Another study, done by the CUNA (Credit Union National Association) shows us something more interesting. From a survey including 1,046 people, more than 50% responded that they do in fact place payments with their smartphone. Combine that with the numbers showing how many people own a smartphone and you can see that over 25% of the general population has used their smartphone to place a transaction. The tablet use in itself also adds a great deal to the potential of the mobile market.

What also came up in CUNA’s survey was that just over 77% of participants have security issues when placing an online transaction over their mobile device. Other noticeably smaller concerns were mentioned. Smaller, but concerns none the less: Battery use, comfort and a lack of loyalty programs were some of the issues.

PayPal recently released a report that shows that mobile payments have increased by 5000% since 2010. Large companies have released their solutions; eBay and PayPal have been boasting mobile applications for a while now, and Amazon has been taking payments from their Kindle devices for quite some time as well, but all of those are integrated solutions from ecommerce juggernauts that are selling their products and processing the payments as well. What about everyone else? What about smaller stores which rely on external processors and providers to process their payment for them? How can they offer secure, safe, and fast payments on mobile devices?

We discussed SEKUR.me’s 2 step verification process that shows that both security and comfort were taken into consideration. When we spoke to BlueSnap CEO, Ralph Dangelmaier, he explained about SnapMobile, their new solution for secure one click payments as well. In addition, we are seeing processors and PSP’s acquiring and partnering with mobile solution companies to help with the demand for fast secure mobile payments, and we are seeing this happen on a daily basis. These companies show that there are solutions available for smaller merchants and stores.

The numbers speak for themselves. The mobile market is already a large chunk of everyone’s customer base, and we are seeing the numbers of people with capable devices only going up.

Some merchants say to themselves that their store is not suitable for mobile purchases, or that their customers won’t buy their product from their smartphone or tablet. It’s not that they won’t, but if you don’t have a mobile solution, they can’t.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia