Category: Mobile Payments

Bitcoin may become the sixth largest reserve currency in the world by 2030

Digital currency is becoming a more powerful force in the global economy, especially as mobile commerce continues to grow in popularity. A new study from Magister Advisors and International Business Times predicts that Bitcoin, a famous, but relatively controversial digital currency, will become the sixth largest global reserve currency by 2030. Though Bitcoin is quite volatile in value, more consumers and businesses are showing favor for this currency as they become more committed to the digital world.

Digital currency is gaining support in Europe

Bitcoin is currently experiencing a very large increase in value, which is being fueled by a recent decision from the European Union, which has declared that Bitcoin is an actual currency and that it is exempt from value added taxes associated with exchange transactions. The study suggests that banks throughout the world will invest approximately $1 billion into Bitcoin and Bitcoin exchanges over the next two years. Banks are expected to make use of new processes for clearance and settlement in order to make Bitcoin more convenient for consumers to use in the future.

Bitcoin remains somewhat infamous due to its volatility

Digital currencies have become somewhat infamous, largely due to their volatile nature. In the case of Bitcoin, the currency has been unregulated for the majority of its existence. This has lead to major fluctuations in the currency’s value, with crashes in value leading to financial ruin for some individuals and organizations that have heavily invested in the currency. While 90% of Bitcoin’s value is held in speculation, the vast majority of transactions made with the currency are commercial transactions that are occurring in developing economies throughout the world.

Consumers show interest in Bitcoin as mobile commerce grows

Growing in popularity, Bitcoin for beginners AKA: newbies, has been catching on especially for mobile users. This is mainly due to the rising popularity of  people taking care of their investment profiles via their phone. More consumers are relying on their mobile devices to do their shopping, both online and in physical stores, and Bitcoin represents a relatively easy way to make large purchases. As this trend continues to gain momentum, more retailers and banks are expected to show their support for this digital currency.

Trojans and other threats continue to be a serious concern when it comes to money matters over cell phones.

Kaspersky Lab, the online and mobile security company, has now released its most recent quarterly report on its analysis of the evolution of threats that consumers were facing during the third quarter of 2015.

The analysis involved the detection of more than 300,000 new mobile malware programs.

That considerable figure represented an increase of 10.8 percent over the number of threatening mobile security programs that were detected in the second quarter. The primary technique that was used in order to profit from the mobile threats was the display of intrusive ads to consumers on their smartphones and tablets. Adware has seen a growing trend over the mobile channel and in this most recent report, it represented over half of all threats that were detected for these devices during the third quarter.

The report also described the different types of mobile security attack methods most commonly used.

For instance, some types of mobile cyber attack involve the use of super-user privileges (that is, root access) in order to hide the fact that they are present within the systems folder. This makes them much tougher to spot and overcome. At the same time, the report noted that the number of SMS Trojans have been falling. In fact, during the third quarter, they made up only 6.2 percent of the threats that were detected.

Though mobile banking threats had seen somewhat of a reduction, they remain a serious concern. During the second quarter, there had been 5.9 million notifications, whereas the third quarter saw 5.68 million notifications. The decrease was definitely there, but at the same time, it was not great enough to be able to say that the problem is any less serious.

Kaspersky Lab Solutions reported blocking nearly 636,000 attempts to launch types of mobile security threats such as malware that would be able to steal money by way of the device user’s online banking. That figure was 17.2 percent smaller than it had been the quarter beforehand. Mobile banking Trojans were most likely to occur in Austria.