Are Smart Wallets the Next Big Thing?

We spoke to attendees at Money 20/20 to ask them their views on payment trends, predictions for the coming year and what the ideal payments ecosystem looks like.

Here’s our interaction with Levi King, Co-founder and CEO of Nav.

Biggest Trends

Our vertical focus is financial technology and really where payments impacts us is where we accept payments from our customers. They are all small business owners and so some of the re-issuance of cards around chip technology has caused challenges, said Nav’s King. “I think, it’s a challenging time for merchants where there is a card-not-present transaction and I think that is going to drive a lot more merchants to push their payments demands or just encourage their customers to use just mobile wallets.” In security technologies, for instance, King said, it might get more difficult for merchants to rely on recurring transactions and things like that at the same time we have mobile wallets getting lot more popularity.

Preparing for 2016 and Beyond

“I think, credit cards in the U.S. would be difficult to replace for a long time,” King said. “So, I think, where mobile wallets become more ubiquitous is in online transactions. After mobile wallets are ubiquitous in both mobile and desktop, I think, that’s where we will see plastic slip. Until then, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.” Also, the traction Apple and other digital wallets got in 2015 will accelerate a lot more quickly, he added.

The Ideal Payments Solution

King believes the ideal payments solution would essentially have the smarts to understand consumers’ need to switch their payment methods for different kind of transactions. “I think, that needs to be part of mobile wallet experience. It needs to be automated.” There has to be some hierarchy in decision making of the wallet based on what payment method the user wants to use and should get smarter over time, he added.

Levi King is co-founder and CEO of Nav, a free way for business owners to manage their entire credit and financial life. King is a six-time entrepreneur who has started successful businesses in the manufacturing, hospitality, retail financial services, and franchising spaces. He has accessed financing more than 30 times and founded Nav to provide small-business owners with a resource to help ease the process.

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