Tag: tablet payments

MasterCard is predicting that by 2018, the use of smartphones and tablets for purchasing will be widespread.

MasterCard has just released its latest predictions regarding mobile payments, which have shown that it believes that the market will become mainstream by the year 2018.

Not coincidentally, this announcement coincided with the unveiling of its new MasterPass product.

The new MasterCard MasterPass mobile payments product will be launching later on in 2013 and will allow consumers to tap, touch, and click their smartphones in order to complete transactions to make purchases. This service also supports NFC technology, tags, QR codes, and other forms of checkout within a brick and mortar shop.

MasterCard is hoping that this will help to move past the struggle mobile payments has seen until now.

Jorn Lambert, the MasterCard Europe group head for emerging payments, has stated that the hope is that after years of experiencing false starts, the habits of consumers are now changing, meaning that this year will be the start of mobile payments truly gong mainstream. He explained that “For me, the train has left the station on this. Consumer behaviour around tagging and the like is becoming more and more mainstream.”

He has been a part of the development of the mobile payments service which is predicted to be launched later this year. He explained that the company’s data is indicating that within three to five years, this will be one of the methods that consumers will expect to have available to them for making payments. He said that this will occur with or without the credit card giant, so it is vital for that company to launch this MasterPass product.

Lambert also revealed that he felt strongly about the rumors that have long been circulating about the first steps that Apple and Google will be making into the mobile payments market in Europe, and that this will be important to speeding up the pace of adoption by consumers. He stated that he would be very surprised if either of those companies chose to create its own acceptance brand and created the structures for managing the risk in the credit ecosystem that are currently developed by the industry itself.

However, he is hopeful that they will move forward with mobile payments as this will be an important catalyst.

Taxi drivers are discovering that smartphones may be the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.

Though digital wallets may be struggling and mobile payments in stores might not be taking off at the rate that was anticipated, taxi drivers are seeing the true potential in the technology for adding practical convenience and a new way to pay for the ride.

Cabbies are seeing the benefits in this technology both for themselves and their customers.

It is still rare for taxi drivers to be able to process transactions with credit cards, which means that many of them find themselves missing opportunities to make money every day. They find themselves having to send customers away when they cannot accept their preferred method of paying for the fare. Many complain of animosity from the lost customers, due to the limited options.

However, with mobile payments, this could entirely reverse the problem in a practical way.

There have been two major developments in providing mobile payments options to taxi cab passengers. The first is through an actual physical device that can connect to the driver’s smartphone or tablet. The second is through mobile apps to which both the driver and the passenger have subscribed.

In the first case, a device – often known as a dongle – is attached to the smartphone or table of the taxi driver. This allows mobile payments to be accepted by using the device to swipe credit cards. This is a highly convenient service that is offered by a number of different providers to small businesses and services such as cabs.

The idea has become so popular that there are some cab companies that will be distributing the dongles to all of their drivers so that they will have mobile payments available throughout. The advantage is that the service is quick and easy to use and doesn’t require the passenger to have a either a smartphone or an app installed on their own device to make it work.

However, some people are uncomfortable with making mobile payments on the devices of someone they don’t know. In those circumstances, apps are often available that allow them to not only book the car, but also make the payment for the ride through their own device, using a credit card.

In both cases the mobile payments typically come with a per transaction fee that will usually be in the range of 2 to 3 percent.