Tag: mobile phone payments

These large institutions are using data and offers to help to ensure that they hold the market.

Bankers have always seen transactions as their own domain, to the point that they are virtual owners, says recent Finextra research, and now they are hoping to use their might in this arena to lead the mobile payments sector, as well.

To do this, Finextra has reported that they will be deploying data and discounts to eliminate the competition.

The research from Finextra suggested that in order to become the most powerful player in mobile payments, they will be using their data and applying discounts as massive weapons in the battle to hold control over transactions and to be able to provide services that step above and beyond making a purchase.

The Finextra research was based on the responses given by over 180 bankers who were surveyed.

These survey participants were asked about what Finextra referred to as “key issues” in the realm of monetizing mobile payments. Some of the findings produced by the study include that 81 percent of the participating banks are seeking to add value beyond the actual transaction itself. This included making relevant offers to consumers directly at the point of sale.

Moreover, about two out of every three survey participants (67 percent) explained that they were seeking to own and manage the markets not only for the money of a consumer, but also all of the other elements of an individual’s wallet, such as points cards, memberships, and coupons.

Other mobile payments survey findings from the respondents included:

• 60 percent felt that a “trusted banking environment” is the most appropriate place for mobile payments, as opposed to third party smartphone apps.
• 43 percent said that they had a digital wallet offering in the pipeline within the next 6 to 12 months.
• 49 percent would take part in some form of open industry digital wallet initiative.

In terms of the future of mobile payments “big data”, 44 percent of the banks explained that they did not have adequate resources to take full advantage of it, and an additional two out of every three respondents said that smartphone monetization would be a primary big data usage driver, offering the required insight for personalizing targeted offers to consumers.

The latest services from the companies have been unveiled for use by the retail marketplace.

VeriFone Systems Inc. and The Pinnacle Corp. have both announced their launches of brand new mobile payments solutions for the retail market space, at a time when these unveilings are being made with increasing speed by various entrants to this ecosystem.

This new point of sale service is a part of the partnership that has been made with the National Payment Card Association.

Pinnacle is an automated technology provider for the petroleum and convenience store industries. It entered into a partnership with the National Payment Card Association (NPCA) in order to be able to launch the Pinnacle Palm POS mobile payments service. The solution is designed to give retailers an app that has been customized with their own branding and that will permit consumers who use it to use their smartphones to make purchase transactions instead of a debit or credit card.

This mobile payments solution uses a very simple strategy for its card authorization.

The design of the system means that the mobile payments user will not need to share his or her personal data across a network. Moreover, it also means that the existing infrastructure for the retailer will not need to be changed, said Pinnacle. The Palm POS smartphone transaction service will broaden the partnership between the company and the NPCA for six years.

According to Drew Mize, the chief operating officer from Pinnacle “We are very excited about the launch of our mobile payments strategy, leveraging our existing and successful partnership with NPCA of many years and their portfolio of intellectual property.” He went on to say that they are providing a solution that is outside of PCI’s scope, which “is based on the foundation of standards that is being evaluated by PCATS; and designed to support both outside and inside payments, this solution has potential for rapid deployment by any retailer using Palm POS.”

The NPCA is now offering the mobile payments through Palm POS to users of both Android and iOS based smartphones. At the same time, VeriFone has announced its own portable, countertop, and smartphone transaction systems.