Category: Apps

Mobile payments from MasterPass are heading to an app near you

| March 3, 2014

The MasterCard service is now going to add in-application purchases to its offerings.

MasterCard has just announced that its MasterPass mobile payments wallet will be available for making in-app purchases as well as the already existent option for merchants to embed the transaction type into their e- and mcommerce websites.

This announcement was made by the credit card giant in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.

Among the very first to use this new in-app mobile payments opportunity from MasterCard are Major League Baseball and Starbucks Australia. By bringing the smartphone wallet to applications, the company is acknowledging that consumers are shopping with their favorite retailers through branded retail apps on an increasing basis. This is the case whether those shoppers are on the go or actually within the store, itself.

As MasterCard recognized this trend, it only made sense to ensure that its mobile payments were compatible with it.

The senior vice president and group head, U.S. emerging payments lead at MasterCard, Purchase, New York, Mario Shiliashki, explained that as a growing number of consumers shop at retailer locations by way of mobile apps or with applications and browsers combined, it has been very important for the company’s offerings to adapt. He added that it is common for smartphone using consumers to find the experience from a dedicated app to be more appealing.Mobile Pyaments - MasterCard

Therefore, by allowing MasterPass transactions to be available in stores, on websites, and in apps, Shiliashki feels that it will help to enhance the complete shopping experience. Providing compatibility with its mobile wallet in applications means that consumers will be able to choose the experience that they feel is the most appealing, relevant, and appropriate for their own needs. He also stated that it has allowed the company to bring the online and in store experience closer together.

The appeal for consumers to choose mobile payments through MasterPass instead of paying with credit cards and other means through each individual retail application is that it allows a transaction to be securely completed from one wallet, without having to provide payment data with numerous different merchant application providers.

Mobile payments growth has solutions providers fighting tooth and nail

| February 28, 2014

As smartphone based transactions take off at breakneck speed, everyone is trying to hop aboard.

The speed with which mobile payments services are growing and are becoming accepted have now made it clear to most large banks that if they want to be able to remain relevant into the future, they will need to be able to offer their customers the ability to pay for goods and services through the use of smartphones.

Many telecoms and credit card companies are also hopping on board this massive trend.

Even retailers are starting to come up with their own opportunities to hop onto the mobile payments bandwagon and are coming up with their own unique strategies. As the shift toward smartphones as a platform continues, a growing number of companies from massive international giants to small mobile app development startups are trying to turn themselves into important players in this sector.

As mobile payments adoption becomes more common, the competition for those positions is growing.

In fact, it has already reached the point that solutions providers are trying virtually anything to carve out their share of this market, and to continue clawing to broaden that share. Unfortunately, as this continues to occur at an increasingly rapid rate, it is also causing this particular market to fragment. The technology as a whole is owned by many groups and within each group there is a flood of different players. Every one of them is looking to dominate as opposed to creating a consistent experience overall.Mobile Payments - Serious Competition

The result has been the development of what David Sear, Weve managing director, called a “mess”. He pointed out that “It is confusing for people and for banks, as well as being costly all round.” He explained that scalability is critical in order to make this market work. While it is currently questionable whether the situation is contributing to bank revenues in any way, it is undoubted that these institutions must hang onto it, regardless, in order to succeed in the future.

This fact makes the future of mobile payments extremely hard to predict. The form of it, at the moment, suggests that it will only continue to become more muddied and complex before it has the ability to improve.