The Department of Finance for the city is looking to take advantage of the ubiquity of smartphones.
The Department of Finance of New York City is now seeking to develop a mobile payments option to help to boost collections on the tickets that are issued for traffic camera and parking violations.
This could prove to be a large and successful venture, considering that enforcement agents issue 8-10 million tickets per year.
The Department of Finance (DOF) is exploring options for mobile payments for tickets for parking and traffic light violations that would give drivers the ability to use anything from debit and credit cards to Apple Pay, PayPal, or even Bitcoin based transactions. This effort is in response to a request made by the city to obtain information for the development of a system that would accelerate the process of collecting from parking tickets, which brings in approximately $600 million per year.
Using mobile payments was one of the technology channels that appears the most promising to the DOF.
The brief from the department explained that “After an internal review of DOF’s current payment channels and of recent developments in contemporary payment technologies.” It also went on to say that the department feels that emerging tech could offer a way for drivers to quickly and conveniently pay their parking tickets by way of smartphone, tablet, or other forms of mobile devices.
At the moment, the parking tickets that are issued by traffic enforcement agents and NYPD officers can be processed online, through the mail, or in person. The NYC.gov online payment site is not currently mobile optimized, and using it comes with a convenience fee of 2.49 percent.
The proposal from the Department of Finance would develop a mobile payments based system that would provide a single click option. Using that tech, the tickets could be scanned or photographed in a way to be able to process it while also taking “advantage of new technologies and extended public access to government.” It will simply make it easier and faster for the recipients of these tickets to get paying them over with.
1 in 6 of purchases made at the coffee company is via mobile phones.
According to Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, during the company’s third quarter earnings, 16% of the nearly 7 million transactions occurring each week at its shops are via mobile payments and this success is due to the early launch of its mobile version of its payment card, which has lead to Starbucks transacting over 90% of purchases made via mobile devices in the US, last year.
Shultz says that “the real growth is yet to come”.
The company’s upcoming mobile order and pay app will be its most significant technological innovation released in 2014. The CEO said that “Starbucks Coffee has cracked the code to tying mobile payment to loyalty.”
He explained that the success Starbucks has achieved has to do with leveraging “the intersection of three powerful mobile trends.” According to Shultz, these trends include a change in consumer behavior as people are spending more time online and less time in physical stores. There is also the trend of people eating out and less at home and the growing trend of people engaging in online activity via their mobile devices.
Shultz explained that Starbucks mobile order and pay” seamlessly integrates mobile ordering and our proprietary mobile program with point of sale and store operations.” He said that this enables Starbucks to enhances the experience of its customers, exceed their expectations and extend their loyalty.
Starbucks is seeing a growth of 50% in mobile payments every year.
The new mobile order and pay app is set to be launched in the Portland market in December and throughout the nation in 2015. The new app will enable consumers to place their order before heading to select stores, so they can pick up their order without having to wait in line.
The number of Starbucks cafés continues to expand in 2014, with more drive-up options being added to stores. Shultz said that even though the company does not have the software or the hardware expertise of its competitors it has managed to alter consumer behavior, which is something its competition has not done. The CEO stated that Starbucks has achieved this by integrating mobile payments convenience into an enjoyable and compelling program that gives customers rewards.
