Smartphones and Financial Technology (FinTech) Enable New Mobile Payment Methods
Just published—our 2021 edition. Order now!
A wide variety of services, technologies and strategies are now competing with conventional cash and credit cards for consumers’ payment needs.
Smartphones are being used by merchants and service companies as credit card readers, thanks to technology from companies like Square. Using a small scanner that plugs into a smartphone, users can process credit cards for a small fee. Likewise, PayPal has an iPhone app with transactions for bank accounts or PayPal accounts. The technology is a boon for small businesses that previously worked only on a cash or check basis.
The Google Wallet is an app that enables smartphones to be used to pay for goods and services by waving the phones across readers at checkout counters. Related apps are available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. Around the world, multiple other mobile payment systems compete with Google and Apple, including Alipay (which originated in China) and Paytm (which originated in India).
Payment via smartphone is fostered by the fact a vast number of consumers are already managing their banking and investment accounts on their phones, keeping tabs on account balances and making transfers as needed. However, Americans have been slower than people in Asia and parts of Europe in adopting mobile payments. Challenges include the facts that typical American smartphone users are wary of security issues, and there are already hundreds of millions of credit and debit cards in widespread use across the nation. U.S. households are very comfortable with using debit cards for day-to-day purchases, and it was difficult for wireless payment firms to change their habits until the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic forced consumers’ hand.
For everything you need to know about Banking, Mortgages & Credit companies, see: Banking, Mortgages & Credit Industry Almanac 2021
Order Plunkett’s Banking, Mortgages & Credit Industry Almanac 2021 Here
Available to Plunkett Research Online subscribers
See more information about the online edition here.
Also available in Almanac Editions.
Publication Date: November 2020Price: $379.99
Printed ISBN: 978-1-62831-588-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62831-895-1
See the complete listings of book contents and details here.
