Are there too many mobile payment systems?

We are living in great times right now. We are at the point where many of us can leave the house in the morning, forget our wallets behind on the mail table, and get through an entire day using various services through our phones. We can buy food, take public transportation (or private transportation), and purchase goods without ever touching paper money or even our credit cards. I wrote about this just a couple of weeks ago. But that kind of lifestyle, while cool as heck, comes at a price.

Apps, apps, and more apps

The cost of such a lifestyle is a virtual cornucopia of apps that necessarily come along with it. Walmart, Dunkin Donuts, Steak N’ Shake, Subway – and those are just the places I saw driving home today – all have their own apps and payment systems that you need to learn and maintain if you want to walk the walk. It’s at best annoying, and at worst intimidating.

Meanwhile a more universal solution is out there and similarly gaining traction – NFC Payments. Android Pay and Apple Pay both utilize a single payment platform that works for everyone. The only reason for the variance is the difference in operating systems. But the category of NFC payments can be consolidated under those umbrellas – or can they?

Fragmented

CES is coming up, and as I’ve been wading through my sea of emails, I’ve come across a couple of other vendors who are touting contactless payment systems. The only problem is, they’re pushing their own NFC payment system and not tying into Android or Apple Pay. So, now NFC is starting to become fragmented. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing – I’m reserving judgement until I actually speak with them at the show – but right now, it leaves a sour taste.

So, what we’re left with is a bit of a mess of payment systems. Before you know it, you’re using your credit card more than ever just setting these darn things up. Nothing would be greater than for something – perhaps even the existing NFC options – to expand and consolidate all of these payment systems under an umbrella of one service. It’s a pipe dream, I totally get that, but as things stand today, it borders on the unmanageable.

And yet…

But isn’t this how technology works? Don’t we as people and as consumers tend to throw a lot of things against the wall to see what sticks? How are we going to develop the best tech for the job unless we try everything. It may leave some people in a lurch, but for users like me (and I hope you) it allows us to expand our mobile lifestyle in ways that weren’t possible just a couple of years ago. We are buying things with our phones. Just think about that.

If a maze of apps and services is what it takes to get people to adopt the concept of the mobile payment, then I have to be on board. As a proponent of the concept – I’m a bit of a fan of mobile payments, in case you hadn’t gleaned that yet – I have to be willing to get behind any initiative that pushes this forward. Bring me your apps, and your coils, and your QR codes yearning to be – well, not free I guess.

Everywhere you want to be

But if we are going to drag consumers into the world of mobile payments, it’s going to be through persistence and pervasiveness. We need to dig into every nook and cranny of the average person’s life with an app or service that demands, “Use me!” Only then will we see a critical mass of adoption of mobile payments. Maybe it’ll be with QR codes, but I hope not. Maybe it’ll be with NFC. Maybe it will be with something else that only exists in a booth at CES in three weeks. But as tech enthusiasts, it is our duty to find out.

So, in addition to the comments that I’m looking forward to reading, this week, we’re also taking a poll. We want to see where you fall on the mobile payment spectrum. Maybe you never use them, maybe you’re as passionate about them as me. Go ahead and enter your vote in the poll, and add some comments to the article as well. Do you think that this mass of apps is the right way to go? Are you willing to try them for the sake of the mobile payment platform? Are you still a little unsure about mobile payments? Sound off in the comments with your thoughts and let’s see if we can figure this out.

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from Pocketnow http://pocketnow.com/2016/12/17/too-many-mobile-payment-systems