You go out for dinner without the wallet. To pay the Bill, says: “my name is [insert your here]“. The waiter clicks on the tablet’s display.
This is one of the ways to use the phone as a means of payment. The service will begin to popularize in Brazil from next year, when all the operators should be allowed to make the smartphone a digital portfolio. If this alternative revenge, will be the biggest change in how we pay for goods and services since the arrival of the cards, in the years 1950.
> > Cell that enslaves
The cell phone is no longer a restricted to make calls and send messages for a long time. Smartphones are powerful and portable computers. Display maps, act as minivideogames, play music and videos, send e-mails, surf the net. The new payment services leverage this versatility. Most of our accounts now is paid electronically, by card or internet. Why not use your cell phone to do this?
Most of these new means of payment uses two technologies. The simplest involves an exchange of text messages. In the case of service Paggo, launched a year ago by the carrier Hi, by Banco do Brazil and by Cielo. After that the mobile phone number is typed in store payments, the customer receives an SMS with the collection. Type a password and sends a message to authorize the purchase. The data is digitally encoded to prevent fraud. With this simple system, even a basic cell phone can be used for payments. This is important in Brazil, where only 14% of people have smartphone.
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A good part of the mobile payment service uses a data transmission technology known by the initials NFC. Modern smartphones (with the exception of iPhones) now come with NFC. To make a payment, simply bring your phone card shop machine. In Japan, it is possible to pay for the subway or the account of the dinner that way. The digital portfolio of Google, launched in 2011, also works well.
In 2012, payments made by mobile reached $ 212 billion, according to research firm Gartner. About 80% of transactions are made by SMS or over the web, and not with the NFC. “The NFC requires a change in consumer behaviour, and that takes time,” says Sandy Shen, Director of research at Gartner. But the future passes through it.
Image courtesy of Dave Catchpole