Category: Mobile Payments

Popular app files two trademarks that could dictate its future

Massively popular mobile photo-sharing application Snapchat may be looking to solidify its future as a relevant application by embracing mobile payments. The app has become widely popular among a large demographic, but its uses are somewhat limited. It exists as a photo and video-sharing platform, through which users can share snippets of their lives with those on their contact lists. Typically, the pictures and videos shared through the app have a very short lifespan, with some lasting only seconds before being lost forever.

Trademarks highlight mobile commerce services

Snapchat has filed two trademarks that highlight its interest in the field of mobile commerce. The trademarks suggest that the company is interested in accepting, processing, and transferring payments among its users. One of the trademarks refers to computer application software that is responsible for handling electronic payments. The trademark suggests that this software can be downloaded from a global network, allowing it to be accessed by potentially millions of users. The second trademark filed by Snapchat involves the electronic transfer of money to others. This would involve the transfer of funds from various sources, including mobile devices.

Snapchat may be able to find enduring success by engaging in mobile commerce

Snapchat has not yet revealed how it intends to implement these new trademarks, but a focus on mobile commerce could help the company establish lasting relevance among its users. Snapchat is not the first photo-sharing application and it will not be the last. Many of its predecessors have faded into obscurity because they had little in the way of versatility. Apps that offer more than just a single, relatively simple feature have the potential to remain relevant among consumers that are generally quite fickle about the apps that they use.

Snapchat has limited experience in mobile payments

The demand for mobile commerce is on the rise. Consumers want to make use of new services that allow them to manage, transfer, and use their funds at their discretion. Snapchat may not have extensive experience with mobile commerce, but it does have access to a massive consumer base that may respond well to whatever efforts it ends up making in the mobile payments field.

A new digital wallet has been launched by the store to let shoppers pay for purchases without cards.

Coles has now released their new mobile payments wallet service called Pay Tag, which is meant to allow people to purchase their groceries and collect reward points at the supermarket chain without having to bring any plastic cards with them to the checkout counter.

The mobile wallet has now been launched and is available to shoppers at the store who carry smartphones.

According to the grocery chain, this mobile payments is the first of its kind that was issued by a retailer to bring contactless smartphone technology and loyalty cards together into one service. The Coles Pay Tag can be used by all customers with the retailer’s credit card and a smartphone. Beyond paying for purchases, it also gives customers the chance to collect their FlyBuys points by tapping their smartphones on a reader device at the checkout counter.

Users can also use the mobile payments app to view their available credit, account balance, and other information.

The service also allows customers to gain access to the due date of their account’s bill, and their transaction history. They can view FlyBuys offers and activate them over their mobile devices, as well.

Although most contactless payment services based on tapping the device against a reader use NFC technology that is built into the phone. However, because the majority of smartphones are not near field communications enabled, Coles has taken a different route. They have simply contained the information in a sticker that the customer can attach to the back of her or her phone.

This way, even without enabled NFC technology within the device, its sticker can still be tapped against the reader and the mobile payments can be made at the checkout counter. That is all that is required when it comes to transactions under $100, whereas a four digit PIN must be entered in order to complete transactions that are greater than that amount. The retailer has already announced that if a tag has been fraudulently used, the customer will receive a reimbursement for that amount.