Tuesday, October 12, 2010

What is needed for digital begging?

It is clear that the way that we pay and receive payments will change drastically in the next decade. Everything else changed as the digital revolution took hold of our world, so definitely, for sure money will change too.

I was thinking about how payment behaviour will change. The things that we are used to in a cash economy as things change into digital money. Would it be possible to beg for instance? I was convinced that this would be difficult, predominantly because I believed that we will put the control of payment back in the hands of the payer.

Then I saw that the guys at Zoompass implemented a mechanism to ask people for money (Read here). As a matter of fact, the new feature even allows you to ask a whole bunch of people at the same time for money. I see where they are coming from... it is now possible to get the club fees paid in one smooth step. No more phoning or pleading to get the team's subscription paid. But this is also a great tool for beggars I think. With the help of digitisation, a beggar is now not limited to one victim at a time - one can now target a whole crowd at the same time.

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