Tag: mobile payments technology

Mobile payments company, Pageonce, changes its name and angle

| May 10, 2013

Mobile Payments Name ChangeThe firm is hoping to take a new step into the industry that will help to promote adoption.

While many have been expecting the mobile payments revolution to have already begun, there are a number of hurdles in front of consumers, making them hesitant to adopt this new technology.

While the main selling angle has been convenience, until now, most consumers don’t find a card swipe inconvenient.

Moreover, using credit and debit cards is a process with which consumers have become quite comfortable, whereas, they are also well aware of the security and other concerns that can be related to the use of technology. Therefore, except for early adopters, many people have held off the use of mobile payments so that they can allow others to be the guinea pigs while they continue with systems that have never caused them much grief in the first place.

Pageonce is hoping to take a new focus in mobile payments by changing its name to Check.

With the new name, Check, the mobile payments company is also hoping to change its angle in order to make it more appealing for use by consumers. They have understood their competition and know that the technology has yet to be proven among consumers in the mass market. Now they have to convince people to leave their plastic cards and choose their smartphones, instead.

Check has, therefore, broadened its focus. They know that mobile payments in store will be a tremendous opportunity, but that isn’t where the industry has reached, quite yet. That said, consumers do like to pay their bills online, and so the company has recognized this and has expanded to offer this opportunity, as well.

According to the chief operating officer at Check, Steve Shultz, “When we started the company, the name Pageonce made sense.” But he added that “We were an aggregator of a person’s financial data — putting it all on one page. But we are now a different company.” While Pageonce allows users to establish ongoing mobile payments of bills, it is also able to offer transactions similar to those from PayPal where money is sent peer-to-peer.

Schultz pointed out that this mobile payments app is the only one that “combines personal finance features and payments on a mobile device.”

Mobile payments are deemed to be more hygienic than cash

| April 2, 2013

Oxford University Mobile Payments StudyA recent study performed by scientists at Oxford University has added cleanliness to the list of benefits.

Providers of mobile payments are struggling to promote the adoption of their services among consumers, but they have just been handed another benefit that they can add to their list.

The release of the results of a study has shown that it is cleaner to use smartphones to make purchases.

The study showed that cash is exceptionally unclean, which makes mobile payments far more appealing to a growing number of consumers who are trying to limit their exposure to unwanted bacteria and pathogens. In a world where we are continually being reminded to wash our hands and keep clean, simply paying with cash could be taking these efforts a step backward, said the Oxford University study.

The study was conducted by the scientists on behalf of MasterCard, to help to push its cashless and mobile payments programs.

The university researchers examined European bank notes and what they discovered was that each contained an average of 26,000 bacteria. Even the brand new notes that they examined still had an average of 2,400 bacteria, to which the consumer could come in contact.

According to Ian Thompson, a professor of Engineering Science at Oxford University, “The bank notes we tested harbored an average of 26,000 bacteria, which, for a number of pathogenic organisms is sufficient for passing on infection.” He went on to add that “Previous studies of bank notes have indicated contamination with potentially harmful bacteria such as Klebsiella and Enterobacter, species which can cause disease in humans.”

Professor Thompson also added that as the concerns continue to rise about strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, there is some value to conducting a broader study that can help to track the spread of strains that are resistant throughout their movements around the world by way of bank notes.

This type of study can only be good news to mobile payments providers that are pushing for cashless societies in which it would be very rare to have to come into contact with cash such as bank notes at any time.