Amazon looks to make mobile payments more secure
Amazon has been a leading online retailer for several years now, but that does not mean that it is not constantly on the lookout to break new ground. The retailer has recently begun growing more aggressive on the matter of mobile payments, noting that a large portion of consumers shop with their smartphones and tablets. Amazon is eager to embrace these consumers by providing them with comprehensive mobile commerce services and has plans to introduce a new system that will help make mobile payments more secure.
Amazon awarded mobile payments patent
Amazon has been awarded a new patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for what it calls an “Anonymous mobile payments” system. According to the patent, the system is designed to allow consumers to pay for products using their mobile device, but these consumers will not have to reveal any personal information to those they are purchasing from. Amazon believes that this will provide consumers with a degree of security is largely absent from the current mobile commerce climate.
Security continues to be a major issue in the mobile commerce field
Security is a major concern that many people have when it comes to mobile payments. Protecting a consumers financial information has become a top priority for companies engaging in the mobile commerce field, and several companies have successfully developed mobile commerce platforms that provide a high level of protection. Amazon, however, claims that anonymity offers the best level of peer-to-peer protection, claiming that its system is ideally suited for a digital economy where consumers often sell goods to one another.
Anonymity proves important to consumers online
Anonymity has become a very popular trend on the Internet. Keeping personal information private has been an issue for many consumers over the past few years. Facebook, as well as other social networks, received a great deal of criticism due to their lackluster privacy features, allowing users’ personal information to be accessed easily. In mobile payments, privacy is a much more significant concern and Amazon is poised to address the issue as aggressively as possible.
Mobile payments sector seeing a decline in wallet applications
Mobile commerce is quickly becoming a major trend among consumers around the world. Many people consider mobile payments to be a simpler, more convenient way to pay for goods and services, partly due to the fact that mobile technology is so prolific. Much of mobile commerce has been powered through the use of mobile wallets, lightweight mobile applications meant to store and use financial information. While mobile commerce has been seeing strong growth over the past two years, these mobile wallets have not been growing more popular among consumers.
Wallets had been popular, but focus on NFC drives consumers away
In the advent of mobile payments, mobile wallets had been considered a necessary platform for mobile commerce as they provided much of the needed infrastructure for this form of commerce to work. Many of these applications are based on NFC technology, which allows for digital information to be transmitted over short distances. The problem, however, is that NFC technology is not universally supported throughout the mobile space. Indeed, the technology has been losing support from many of the companies and organizations that have emerged as strong players in the field of mobile payments, such as PayPal.
Consumers, as well as device makers, are favoring options free from NFC
Mobile wallets are beginning to give way to other applications that take a more accommodating approach to mobile payments. These applications seek to enable a wider range of consumers to participate in mobile commerce, which had, in the past, been largely restricted to those with NFC-enabled devices. These devices are still rare despite the efforts of companies invested in mobile commerce to see their expansion. A growing number of device manufacturers are beginning to abandon NFC technology, favoring mobile commerce platforms that offer some alternative.
Wallets may still be valid in mobile payments if an alternative to NFC is found
As device makers, like Apple, begin to move away from NFC technology, mobile wallets may be due for some change. These applications still receive significant support from Google and Isis, but the NFC-capabilities of these platforms make them unaccommodating to the growing interests of consumers. If organizations focused on mobile commerce want to retain the foothold they have established in this still emerging sector, they may soon have to consider finding an alternative to NFC technology.
