Category: Mobile Payments

Report shows that business and consumer spending will hit $1.315 trillion this year

Business and consumer spending are on the rise in the United States, according to a new report from Forrester Research. The report cites and improving economic climate in the country as the reason for healthy growth in spending. Businesses and government agencies are also spending more money because of positive economic trends. The report predicts that total business and consumer spending will grow by 5.3% this year, reaching $1.315 trillion. Spending is expected to continue growing next year by 6%, as well.

Mobile payments are aiding in the growth of consumer spending

Mobile payments are lending power to this period of growth. Software spending, in particular, is expected to grow by 8.6%, reaching $284 billion. Mobile payment applications are a major factor when considering software spending. Numerous applications that allow consumers to spend money from their mobile devices have been released over the past year, and consumers have shown a great deal of interest in using these apps to shop online and in physical stores.

Mobile commerce continues to flourish in the United States

Mobile commerce has become a powerful force in the United States. While no single mobile commerce platform or service has yet found mainstream acceptance among the majority of consumers, numerous platforms have managed to thrive in an environment where mobile shopping and spending has become quite popular. Consumers appear to favor mobile commerce because of its convenient nature. Payment apps allow consumers to use their mobile devices to shop and pay for products no matter where they are in the world. In-store mobile payment support has also made it easier for consumers to purchase their products quickly, helping them avoid lines and lengthy checkout processes.

Telecommunications spending in on the rise

The report from Forrester Research also shows that the telecommunications sector will generate $354 billion in revenue by the end of the year. This is a 1.7% increase over the revenue that the sector produced last year. Growth in telecommunications spending in 2015 is expected to accelerate, especially as more people purchase smartphones and tablets and companies work to improve their mobile infrastructure.

The application from the Royal Bank of Canada now supports host card emulation to broaden usage capabilities.

The mobile payments app from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has now announced the addition of support for host card emulation (HCE), in a move that it says will give Canadians the ability to use Android based smartphones to complete purchase transactions without having to worry about having the right type of SIM card or being on the correct network.

The bank has built on its existing platform, called the RBC Secure Cloud to encourage smartphone payments use.

According to RBC, this change to its app is “allowing Canadians to pay with most Android mobile phones without worrying about being on the right mobile network or having the right SIM card.” The service will give customers with virtually any Android smartphone that is NFC technology enabled the opportunity to make mobile payments at merchants equipped with Interact Flash contactless POS terminals. The smartphones will function as an alternative to using a traditional debit card.

This new mobile payments technology will be piloted over the winter months by employees of RBC.

They will be using a number of different mobile networks and types of Android device, said the bank. This trial will not yet be testing the support for MasterCard, Visa, and other types of credit card, and other types of value added service, though the bank did confirm that those would be coming “shortly.”

The RBC executive vice president for digital, payments and cards, Linda Mantia, stated that “We are committed to providing our clients with the most innovative, convenient and secure solutions to pay how they want, when they want — HCE is a critical step.” She also added that through the use of HCE, the smartphone based payments by way of the RBC Secure Cloud become “even easier to use”.

The bank first started developing its mobile payments app back in 2009, and it has gone through a number of different evolutions and additions. This addition of HCE is only the latest move by the bank, which is among the players that are attempting to act the most quickly in order to grab hold of the largest proportion of the Canadian smartphone transaction market.