Tag: mobile payments

Samsung introduces new mobile commerce application

Samsung has begun showing off its new Wallet mobile application for its line of smartphones. The company has adopted a strong interest mobile commerce recently, and this interest has helped the company dethrone Apple as the leading provider of mobile devices in the world. Consumers share the enthusiasm for mobile commerce that Samsung has been displaying, demanding new applications that can facilitate mobile payments and make it easier to manage bank accounts and shop online.

Wallet to provide digital storage to consumers

Samsung’s Wallet will act in much the same way that other mobile wallets do. The Wallet will be able to store a wide variety of digital information and content, such as financial data and tickets for concerts or public transport. In this way, the Wallet is very similar to Apple’s Passbook. Unlike the Passbook, the Wallet will allow users to participate in mobile commerce in some way, thanks to the NFC capabilities of Samsung’s latest smartphones.

Wallet to make use of QR codes

While the Wallet will leverage NFC to some degree to open up mobile commerce to consumers, the other aspects of the application will be based on barcodes, specifically QR codes. The Wallet can store mobile coupons, airline tickets, and special offers from loyalty programs that can all be accessed through scanning a QR code. Samsung believes that these codes are a simpler way of providing services to consumers rather than having the Wallet rely entirely on NFC technology.

Wallet may be included in new Galaxy S4

Samsung has already lined up an array of partners that will support the Wallet when it is launched. The company is currently preparing for the launch of the new Galaxy S4, which is expected to be released in spring this year. The Wallet may be made available before the launch of the S4, with current speculation suggesting that the application will be available in a matter of weeks rather than months.

The business will be a rival, and was just opened under the name Affirm.

Co-founder of PayPal, Max Levchin, has just announced the launch of a business that will be a direct rival to the mobile payments segment of the company, which will be called Affirm.

This new company will add itself to the rapidly growing and highly competitive smartphone based marketplace.

The technology that is being offered through Affirm is meant to assist shoppers in completing mobile payments more quickly and easily when making purchases online by way of their devices such as smartphones and tablets, says the official website of the company. At the moment, eBay’s PayPal is the online payment leader, but it is facing growing competition from startups that are making their way into the mcommerce space.

Affirm is concentrating on streamlining mobile payments for a far faster checkout process.

The goal of the company is to help to decrease the amount of information that needs to be typed in when making a purchase over a small device such as a smartphone. Entering credit card numbers, shipping addresses, and other data can be time consuming and frustrating when using a very small screen or a touchscreen typing pad.

Affirm has claimed to have reduced the process of making a purchase online so that it involves two simply taps on the screen of a smartphone. The first is to actually choose Affirm on the website of the participating merchant, and the second is to actually confirm the order itself. At the moment, the identity of the user is confirmed through Facebook. Therefore, there will be a third step that must be taken for first time users, which involves having to log in to their Facebook accounts and then giving permission to use the Affirm app.

Levchin was one of PayPal’s two cofounders (Peter Thiel being the other), and held the position of Chief Technology Officer for four years. After that point, the online and mobile payments company was acquired by eBay. It was Levchin who created and constructed the unique and state of the art fraud prevention and online security systems for PayPal.