Thursday, February 02, 2012

Cards integrated with mobile money

Cards are not part of the scene in the case of most mobile money initiatives.Subscribers of mobile money deployments can do a myriad number of transactions just by making use of their mobile phones. It is now easy to send and receive remittance payments, do person to person payments, buy airtime and pay bills. So why would you still want to offer plastic to mobile money subscribers.

And the answers is very simple: some transactions in the payments domain are only possible with a card and or a sixteen digit (with CVV) number.

It is very complex and difficult to perform a payment transactions at a traditional merchant (with a POS) or to withdraw cash at an ATM without a plastic card. To really get the benefit of these huge traditional payment networks it is essential to offer plastic cards in conjunction of mobile money accounts.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I see this as a matter of how disruptive mobile payments will be eventually.

Will mobile payments be a disruptive technology causing technological discontinuity the same way PCs did to typewriters?

The reason the cards and 16 digit numbers exist is because the card associations became the de-facto standard of global payments before proliferation of the internet.

I believe this model will change
especially as the internet and other devices have already started disrupting the traditional merchant and POS space.

I tested the new Square iPad App with my merchant account yesterday and found something interesting. Cards are actually meant to be used once to come into the system and capture your details. After that first transaction with a merchant you know and trust, you dont need the card to perform future transactions anymore!

The merchant could even have your preferences stored for repeat purchases, this greatly improves the user experience and promotes loyalty

I believe MobileMoney should follow the same pattern, cards should be used once to come into the system and from then on it should be all mobile.

Proliferation of powerful mobile devices like the tablets will disrupt the merchant space forever and the card associations must realise that the future is really about the merchants as more relevant feedback is being provided to merchants beyond just transaction settlements in the new era of mobile and internet.

Adam Gil said...

Just found this very interesting implementation of mobile banking by Pageonce. I really like the idea of paying my bills using my smartphone. in addition it is a huge advantage to pay my bills using my credit card or bank account. does anybody know about some other mobile banking services like this?

Joseph said...

Can mobile card replace the credit card what do you think about that?
Plastic Card
Plastic Business Cards