Thoughts resulting from The webinar Doug King of the Atlanta Federal Reserve gave on “Future Proofing Payments”

The long standing question of the future of Mobile Payments, again discussed and again similar conclusions.

• Will the American market embrace the idea of mobile payments?
• Is it a question of when or a question of why?
• Why do emerging markets embrace new ways and mature markets resist?
• Is it all about acceptance and the merchants investment in contactless reader capability?
• Is it an all or nothing concern?
• Could it be simply reality, as ling need our wallet with other cards e.g. our drivers license, why eliminate payment cards from the physical wallet?

Doug touched on all of these questions. He shared relevant statistics demonstrating the slow and possibly indistinguishable grow in usage of mobile wallets. He shared the success of several of the merchant proprietary mobile payment approaches.

Which leads me down the path of another question. What is the value proposition that will ignite the use of our phone and devices as carriers of our means of payment? The possibility to create value simply with a electronic wallet carrying only means of payment, does not create an exciting proposition.

Our mobile phones and connected devices provide us with such value

We have embraced dozens of apps. They help us to navigate, shop, explore, play and learn. Our phones are beginning to become security devices, taking advantage of sensors to integrate biometrics into how we access and authenticate ourselves as we browse and explore the ever increasing digital place we now call cyber space.

There is another phenomena emerging as a result of how we are transforming how we engage. Some called it the “Uberization” of payments, the ability to make payments frictionless. A change so profound we must stop and reflect and ponder what next.

I recognize there is a repetitive theme to my musing.

When physical world merchants fully embrace the concept of omni channel and build their virtual and physical experiences to complement and augment one another, then, with the ability to integrate payment seamlessly into the shopping experience a value proposition emerges.