Cartes 2011 Part 2 - Who Will Cut Through the Mobile Payment Hedges?
Now that several high profile retailers have rolled out payment terminals and PEDs capable of supporting Contactless Payment, vendors of these technologies are changing their emphasis from EMV and card acceptance to NFC and mobility.
Although Contactless remained a headline theme at Cartes 2011, this was largely as a constituent part of the migration to mobile payment and was reflected in the growing number of NFC devices, wallet apps and technology integrations that were on show.
Now that contactless payment technology is a business as usual requirement, it will open payment systems like never before by providing an interface to devices that are not controlled by the traditional players in the card payments sector.
This is possibly the biggest challenge ever to face the card payments 'club'. Every player today is at some risk of having their interests diluted or even wiped out as the mobile payments revolution progresses.
Acquirers, PSPs and even Card Schemes are at risk of being replaced by collaborations between networks, application providers and service providers who can generate a critical mass for their own payment systems.
Possibly the most secure group of the current players are the equipment vendors as it is going to take a radical culture change before consumers allow merchants to process their payments with anything other than 'trusted' devices. And, although they might not look much, the familiarity and relative comfort that consumers have built up over several decades of using payment terminals will not be easily overcome.
However, new approaches might be possible which remove the need for merchants to have a payment device at all. Who knows where this development might lead, for example?
It's no wonder that all and sundry are involved in developing payment apps for smartphones, PEDs that can interface to smartphones or payment gateways that can accept transactions from mobile devices. Their future involvement in the industry could depend on finding a completely new part to play. Consequently, there is a lot of hedging going on and precious little leadership.
Who is going to emerge from the crowded playing field of mobile payments and lead the industry into a brave new world? Don't expect the answer at Cartes 2012.
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