Mobile Movers, Shakers and Shockers

Posted by Karen Webster on 13 February 2012 | 0 Comments

Tags: pymnts, payments, mobile payments, Visa, Google, PayPal, Facebook

I don’t know about you, but 2012 so far has left me a little breathless given the fast pace at which the payments industry has been moving since we all emerged from the New Year’s break. Maybe it’s the mild winter. No matter, the catalyst, not surprisingly, is mobile and the IP-enablement of just about everything that touches or influences commerce. This last week was particularly interesting given a few announcements from very different corners of the payments ecosystem about their payments strategy, not surprisingly, keyed to what they will pursue (or won’t) along the mobile lines. Here’s my take on last week’s mobile movers, shakers, and shockers.

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"Googling" mPayments Ignition? Why Google's Wallet May Be the Top Search Result

Posted by Karen Webster on 26 May 2011 | 10 Comments

Tags: Google, Google Wallet, mobile, mobile payments

- Ask the Industry: Will Google Wallet ignite mobile payments? Share your thoughts here.

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Outstanding in the Field: FinovateSpring 2011 Showcase

Posted by Tim Attinger on 12 May 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: Finovate, mobile, online banking, alternative payments, open platforms, Apple, eBay, Google

Finovate hosted their spring event this week at the San Francisco Design Center, bringing together the latest and greatest innovators for payments and financial service technologies in a massive exhibition hall in the city by the bay. The San Francisco Bay Area has been a global leader in business model and technology innovation, giving birth to such household names as Apple, Google, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, Intel... the list of global technology leaders born and bred in Northern California goes on and on.

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Google Takes on NFC, Will They Crack the Code?

Posted by Karen Webster on 17 March 2011 | 4 Comments

Tags: google, NFC, mobile, verifone, POS, Groupon

Google has signaled that it will do two things no one else in the payments ecosystem has done or even talked about: make a business case for merchants and consumers around NFC and maybe even put some real money behind it.
 
Google has obviously made a decision that NFC is an opening into something more interesting and lucrative than transforming a phone into a payment card– advertising and marketing opportunities at the point of sale – the physical point of sale. And, it has done a deal with VeriFone that takes the economic sting away from the merchants who need to buy into their  vision to make it work – and who have by and large turned their noses up at NFC up to this point. Layer on top of that their Google Checkout asset and their newly launched One-Pass wallet application and you have the makings of an interesting new payments player. What’s more, Google is building this capability on top of its core assets – online advertising, eyeballs and now its hockey-sticking market share of Android operating systems. The result is the potential  to position itself as not just a payments player, but one that has can blend on and off-line transacting in a new, interesting and potentially big way using the mobile phone as a conduit to the physical and online commerce worlds.
 
What’s amazing is that Google was the first to connect all of these dots. No doubt those loyal readers of PYMNTS.com have read more than a few of my skeptical musings over attempts to use NFC merely as a way to turn phones into cards.  That ship had not only sailed but it hit a huge sandbar when terminal subsidies to merchants dried up and no one tapped at the point of sale even though there were millions of cards in circulation. There was just nothing in the way of a value proposition around NFC as a mag stripe replacement. Yet for years the traditional players continued to invest in and follow a traditional path around NFC deployment which marginalized its potential as enabler of commerce, not just transactions.  
 
Google has both the money and the motivation to drive success. They also have two more things: lots of money and lots of data. Google is an advertising platform and is sitting on treasure troves of data that it successfully monetizes today on their platform. It has a built an engine that can be used to drive offers, targeted offers, and a business model that does not need transaction revenue to pay the bills. It’s why Google might be very happy to fund merchant terminal deployment that traditional card networks can “free ride” – their payday is much richer and much less dependent on marginal transaction costs. Google could really knit together an interesting business model that in and of itself could be disruptive and a customer base and offers platform that could outmaneuver its once-upon-a-time love interest, Groupon.
 
All I can say is that it took Google to finally make NFC worth paying attention to, for everyone.

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The Race to Own Mobile Commerce

Posted by Karen Webster on 4 May 2010 | 9 Comments

Tags: mobile, payments, apple, google, vivotech, quattro, corduro, ecommerce, mcommerce, smart-phones, iphone, android

Apple and Google are off to the races in owning commerce on the mobile phones as recent transactions and announcements clearly show. Here’s a running recap …

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What is Alternative Payment?

Posted by Peter Guidi on 17 March 2010 | 3 Comments

Tags: national payment card, payments, peter guidi, alternative payment, payment, billmelater, ebillme, paypal, eft, ach, decoupled, debit, credit card, google checkout, e-wallets, e-commerce, electronic payments

The payments landscape is constantly changing with new technology and applications regularly emerging trumpeted as the latest and greatest "Alternative Payment" system. With all of this change it might be helpful if we define "Alternative Payment." Perhaps the challenge is to define "Traditional Payment" and say that everything else is Alternative Payment, but somehow that does not satisfy the question. 

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What’s in the Cloud for Payments?

Posted by David S. Evans on 11 March 2010 | 3 Comments

Tags: invisible engines, cloud computing, data center, payments, google, amazon, paypal, ip commerce, innovation, software, saas, paas,

When we speak of “payments in the cloud” we are using the term in a broader sense than it is usually used in the information technology world.

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The New Age of Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Will Drive Growth in the Next Decade

Posted by David S. Evans on 11 March 2010 | 1 Comments

Tags: software, platform, iphone, mobile, payments, google, apple, microsoft, windows, developer, api, application, disruptive technology, commerce, social, facebook, amazon

The invisible engine model followed by Apple's iPhone has helped power the information technology industry for about three decades. Apple itself was one of the pioneers in encouraging developers to write applications for its desktop operating system. It invented the "software evangelist." Microsoft, though, was the maestro catalyst. Its Windows software platform attracted thousands of software developers and hundreds of millions of users. As a result it has been the durable center of a vast desktop-computer based ecosystem since at least the launch of Windows 3.0 in 1990. Invisible Engines tells the story of how software platforms have transformed industries including computers, video games, and handheld devices and then accelerated innovation. It then examines the forces behind the various business models that have been adopted in these industries. Many software platforms have decided not to charge developers while others have. Some have decided to vertically integrate into hardware while others have remained pure platforms.

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The Invisible Engines that Drive Innovation and Transform Industries

Posted by David S. Evans on 8 March 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: invisible engines, mit, payments, applications, software, disruptive technology, credit card, debit card, processing, issuer, code, firefox, facebook, social network, microsoft, windows, apple, iphone, mobile, security, api, youtube, google, catalysts, sdk, developer, development

The use of software platforms to drive innovation and transform industries has exploded since the 2006 publication of my book Invisible Engines with MIT Professor and former Sloan School Dean Richard Schmalensee and Harvard Business School Professor Andrei Hagiu. Around the globe, invisible engines are ushering in a new era of technological change based on software. The Apple iPhone has shaken the mobile phone industry worldwide in part by creating a massive applications business built on the phone's operating system. Firefox has revolutionized the browser industry by encouraging developers to write add-ons and in doing so toppled Microsoft's Internet Explorer from dominance in many countries. Facebook has created a powerful social networking platform by opening itself up to developers. Amazon has started cloud-computing platform that enables entrepreneurs to access its vast software code, hardware and global communication systems over the Internet.

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Mobile App Wars' Impact on the Payments Biz

Posted by David S. Evans on 6 November 2009 | 8 Comments

Tags: iphone, applications, mobile apps, mobile, m-commerce, payments, apple, transactions, blackberry, smartphone, android, droid, verizon, google, microsoft, software

The application wars in the mobile phone business are heating up. They will result in significant threats and opportunities for the payments biz.

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