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Most Exciting Current Technology at SmallBizWindows: Mobile Payments

John Obeto

08- Most exciting current techIf you look at the landscape for payments, our increasingly mobile world requires payment technology the is equally mobile.

While the usual players are starting to see this, several new players are already here, with ideas that run the gamut, and options galore.

This, people is a very good thing.

Interestingly, the early leader seems to be a company that has correctly determined that there is a nexus between mobile payments and customer loyalty.

That company, folks, is Starbucks, with their eponymous card.

Which I carry, and have activated, thanks to Markham Lee. I have also connected it to my Microsoft Band.

Echo Mobile Solutions is another firm working on delivering new, actionable value to mobile payments.

I asked three of the smartest folks I know that are at the confluence of mobility, payments, and technology to weigh in on what they think the impact of Mobile payments would be.

Trent McMurray is a former Microsoft MVP for mobile devices, and the sounder of the mobile payments startup, Echo Solutions.

Actually, this is a very simple answer when you look at how simplistic mobile payments “should” work in the US and globally. One standard, (not technology) that will work wherever you can pay for goods and services.

I will define the “standard” as EMV, the technology behind or in front of EMV really doesn’t matter, as long as an EMV transaction takes place.

If this can be achieved, then the impact will be as large if not larger as when credit and debit cards came into existence. Therefore generating Trillions of dollars in transactions and revenue for everyone.

Trent L. McMurray, Chief Executive Officer
Echo Mobile Solutions LLC

I asked the same question of Markham Lee, a well-traveled technology consultant, and one of the most logical and financially astute gentlemen I am privileged to engage with:

“While the potential for impact is huge, I remain cautiously optimistic overall. I say this because large numbers of American companies are still sending paper checks despite the long existence of ACH payment technology, tap to pay NFC credit/debit cards never caught on in the US, citizens of major economies like Germany and Japan rarely use credit cards and the Japanese have been ignoring their rather extensive mobile payment tech and infrastructure for nearly ten years.

That being said I see the greatest potential for mobile payments in emerging markets, for everything from remittances, banking alternatives and everyday spending, as mobile technology will enable them to leapfrog to the future over their current lack of banking and payment infrastructure”

----Markham Lee, Tech Consultant & Co-founder of ABS Payment Systems

Latiff Cherono is based in his native Kenya, and there to see firsthand how mobility has fueled an explosion in Africa, where tiny Kenya virtually leads the larger economies in terms of innovation in several tech areas:

In lieu of a short quote, Latiff has written an informative guest blog on mobile payments in Kenya, which follows immediately after this.

It shows how a true groundswell is lifting the fortunes over there.

There you have it.

Mobile payments will be huge.

However, like all new technologies, the path to nirvana in mobile payments will be fraught with pain and pitfalls. Determined investors and stockholder's will need knowledgeable handholding to traverse the terrain.

However, success here will create a new breed of oligarchs.

Below, you will find a primer that Markham has freely provided on his reviews and tests of the leading mobile payments platforms in use in the United States.

© 2002 – 2015, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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