Will Your Phone Replace Your Wallet?
Phone payment is readily available in many parts of the globe, but slow to catch on here.
This from the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab:
Whether scanning a cell phone to purchase a bullet train ticket in Japan or buying cattle in sub-Saharan Africa, the ubiquity of mobile phone is revolutionizing traditional banking and commerce. Gartner estimates by the end of 2009, 74.4 million people will use mobile devices to purchase goods and services worldwide, and will double by the end of 2012 . DoCoMo’s Japanese consumers have been buying mass transit tickets and vending machine goods via cell phones for ten years. Over 5 years ago, the m-Pesa project brought mobile phone micro-payments to the un-banked regions of Kenya. The proliferation of mobile phones brings new business models and opportunities to third world countries, and provides a chance to break cycles of poverty. The cell phone also creates opportunities for new business models, and new revenue streams for established players in finance and telecom.
Adoption of mobile technologies varies region to region. The race is on for who will control – and ultimately profit, from mobile banking. Banks, mobile carriers, security and technology providers have much to win, or lose, depending on technology advancements, partnerships, security and user adoption. There are nearly 4 billion mobile phone users, but only about 1.6 billion bank accounts.
