Category: NFC Technology

McDonald’s brings mobile payments support to China stores

| October 7, 2015

McDonald’s teams with Ant Financial in order to support mobile shoppers

McDonald’s has partnered with China’s Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba, in order to support mobile payments. The company sees major promise in China’s mobile commerce market, especially as consumers begin to look for ways to pay for products in a convenient fashion. Some 2,100 of McDonald’s stores in China will now be accepting payments made through Alipay, which is the country’s most prominent mobile payments service.

Company has plans to fully support mobile payments in China by 2016

McDonald’s stores in Shanghai will be the first to begin supporting mobile payments. By March of 2016, all of the company’s stores in China will be accepting mobile transactions. Ant Financial suggests that consumers using Alipay can complete a transaction in only two seconds, which will ensure that they have access to a convenient service. In order to initiate a mobile transaction, consumers will only have to scan QR codes, which have become prominent tools in the mobile commerce space.

Alibaba continues to show aggressive support of the mobile commerce market in Asia

Mobile Payments - McDonald'sAlibaba has been playing a major role in Asia’s mobile commerce space. The company has already established a dominant lead in the Chinese e-commerce space and has moved aggressively into the mobile payments field. Recently, Alibaba announced that it was investing more money into India’s mobile commerce market, forming a deal with that country’s leading mobile payments company, Paytm. The deal is estimated to be valued at $680 million and is expected to have a major impact on how Paytm supports the growth of mobile commerce in India.

McDonald’s stores in the US already support mobile payments made through various services

In the United States, McDonald’s has already become involved in the mobile payments space. The company accepts mobile transactions coming from a variety of services, including Samsung Pay and Android Pay. In some cases, QR codes are used to initiate transactions, but NFC technology is also used as an effective way to engage consumers using their mobile devices to make purchases.

Samsung to launch its mobile payments service in the US next month

| August 18, 2015

Samsung Pay will be launching in the United States next month following trials in South Korea

Samsung has announced that its new mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, will be available in the United States next month. The company has been testing the service in South Korea this month, hoping to iron out bugs before launching in a larger market where mobile payments have begun to grow aggressively. The service will function in a similar fashion to other platforms, such as Apple Pay, as it will be able to store financial information as well as data provided by retailers.

Samsung Pay to make use of NFC technology and tokenization

Samsung Pay will be leveraging NFC technology in order to facilitate transactions. This technology is capable of transmitting digital information over short distances, which is why it has become the backbone for most mobile payments systems. The service will also be using fingerprint verification in order to protect the financial information of its users. Further protection will be provided in the form of digital tokens, which are used to replace consumer financial data in order to protect it from exploitation.

Samsung will be competing with Apple in the mobile payments space

Mobile Payments - SamsungThe launch of the new service represents another step forward concerning Samsung’s plans for mobile payments. The service is meant to compete directly with Apple Pay, which is already available in the United States and will soon be available in other markets. Apple has managed to establish a powerful lead in the mobile payments space, largely due to the security that the company has injected into the service.

Mobile payments services continue to face significant challenges that prohibit their success

Though Apple has managed to establish a lead, it still faces many of the challenges that are preventing other mobile payments platforms from finding widespread success. Security is one of the more significant of these challenges. In the past, high profile cyber attacks have called into question the safety of mobile payment platforms, which has limited the appeal of these services among consumers.