Digital wallet apps are growing in popularity and NFC technology is becoming more widespread.
The smart technology sector has been increasing the interest that consumers have been having in mobile payments services and apps, and it is now believed that these transactions are finally starting to take off in a meaningful way.
This market now has quite a large number of players that each offer their interpretation of the best service.
Within this mobile payments market, NXT-ID Inc, a biometric security company, is expecting that it will become profitable in 2015. This, according to Gino Pereira, its chief exec, at a time in which it is now rolling out an alternative digital wallet service to some very large competition, including Apple Pay. This service is hoping to be able to stand out from the rest with what it feels are exceptional mobile security protections.
Mobile payments has been held back by a continual fear consumers hold with regards to security.
Consumers have yet to feel confident that their sensitive private and financial data will be held secure when using their smartphones as a mobile wallet. According to Pereira, NXT-ID is expecting that its voice- and passcode-protected “Wocket” wallet will be adopted quite quickly. He recently stated that “Even if you take a small percentage of credit cards holders (in the United States) and multiply it by $150 you will see there is a multi-billion-dollar market that is available to us.”
The day before Pereira made that statement, NXT-ID had stated that it had brought in an unidentified sum of money in order to give its Wocket production a boost. It has since experienced a near doubling of its share. The company, based in Connecticut, was founded in 2011. Last year, it did not report any revenue, but it did report a $1.54 million loss.
Since the unveiling of Apple Pay, mobile payments has been gaining a great deal more attention as both merchants and consumers, alike have been taking this transaction much more seriously. Both that service and Wocket, by NXT-ID will function on existing terminals found in stores across the country.
It looks as though Apple is continuing to hold back its use of certain forms of technology that are already becoming rather commonplace in the mobile tech market. For a few years now, other NFC enabled mobile devices have been used for pairing devices, exchanging contacts between smartphones, or even sharing photos and other media files. Tags located in public places such as in shops give consumers the ability to tap their devices and receive information about products or obtain discount coupons that can be redeemed at the checkout counter with another simple tap.