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Tag: smartphone payments

Mobile payments may be the ideal solution for cabbies

Mobile Payments Taxi CabsTaxi drivers are discovering that smartphones may be the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.

Though digital wallets may be struggling and mobile payments in stores might not be taking off at the rate that was anticipated, taxi drivers are seeing the true potential in the technology for adding practical convenience and a new way to pay for the ride.

Cabbies are seeing the benefits in this technology both for themselves and their customers.

It is still rare for taxi drivers to be able to process transactions with credit cards, which means that many of them find themselves missing opportunities to make money every day. They find themselves having to send customers away when they cannot accept their preferred method of paying for the fare. Many complain of animosity from the lost customers, due to the limited options.

However, with mobile payments, this could entirely reverse the problem in a practical way.

There have been two major developments in providing mobile payments options to taxi cab passengers. The first is through an actual physical device that can connect to the driver’s smartphone or tablet. The second is through mobile apps to which both the driver and the passenger have subscribed.

In the first case, a device – often known as a dongle – is attached to the smartphone or table of the taxi driver. This allows mobile payments to be accepted by using the device to swipe credit cards. This is a highly convenient service that is offered by a number of different providers to small businesses and services such as cabs.

The idea has become so popular that there are some cab companies that will be distributing the dongles to all of their drivers so that they will have mobile payments available throughout. The advantage is that the service is quick and easy to use and doesn’t require the passenger to have a either a smartphone or an app installed on their own device to make it work.

However, some people are uncomfortable with making mobile payments on the devices of someone they don’t know. In those circumstances, apps are often available that allow them to not only book the car, but also make the payment for the ride through their own device, using a credit card.

In both cases the mobile payments typically come with a per transaction fee that will usually be in the range of 2 to 3 percent.

Mobile security threats abound with smartphone payment platforms

mobile security smartphone payment platformResearchers are cautioning device users to be careful with the financial and personal data they share.

As mcommerce explodes in popularity, a rapidly increasing number of people are shopping over their smartphones and tablets, making them a natural target to those who would threaten their mobile security through malware and other malicious cyber attacks.

This, according to the researchers at Javelin Strategy and Research, who wrote a report on the topic.

In its most recently released report from Javelin, the researchers explained that the mobile security threats to the various payment platforms have already reached $20 billion, and they are on the rise. They explained that the smartphone payments sector’s open source platform at Android may experience some of the largest struggles as a soft target, with its 50 million domestic smartphone users.

The researchers pointed out that the mobile security threats will be far from exclusive to Android device users.

Equally, though, the researchers also indicated that mobile security threats are targeting the iPhone and its 33 million domestic users. This could be even more damaging as these are the individuals who have the greatest tendency to shop over their smartphones and who spend the most money on their mobile purchases.

According to the authors of the report “Smartphone security is an increasing concern as mobile malware multiplies exponentially, and Android’s open source platform continues to gain market share over iOS.” They indicated that while Android is the target of the majority of malware so far, as it has the largest number of users, hackers still consider iOS to be the most valuable goal, if more challenging to crack.

The report stated that “iOS users spend more individually and have greater deposits on average than Android users.”

The researchers expect that by 2017, approximately 57 percent of adults will own smartphones based on the Android operating system. This will be almost precisely double the number who are predicted to have iPhones, at 28 percent. This skyrocketing use of Android devices will align predictably with the type of mobile security threats and malware volume that the researchers anticipate over the same time period. This is not unprecedented, as the number of Android targeting malware threats increased in the second half of this year from about 30,000 to approximately 175,000.