Thursday, November 03, 2016

Mobile payments: the difference between a mobile wallet and a credit card

The credit card might have taken 50 years to reach mainstream adoption, but the speed of mobile wallet adoption is happening much quicker and it is being driven by the consumer, said panelist Paul Tomes, chief executive officer and co-founder, PassKit.


This is particularly relevant for millennials and high-income earners – standouts in their willingness to use a smartphone to make those mobile payments.


“People’s attitudes to using the smartphone are changing. They understand that there is more security and that it can provide more facility. And when you combine payments with a much more holistic view of the customer purchasing experience – because you now have content within the smartphone, that is enhancing people’s lives,” said Tomes.


As an example, Tomes highlighted adoption rates in countries and regions with existing mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Android Pay .


“It’s when you are combining a payment with something that is adding additional value to the customer. Not just the convenience – but making the intention to purchase easier and being rewarded for that purchase after you’ve made it with your smartphone,” said Tomes.


In 2012, the Starbucks app was one of the few electronic wallets around. The big change since then is the move from branded wallets to smartphone operators like Apple, or big companies like a Tencent or Alibaba, deploying mobile wallet applications that brands can use to deliver an experience to their customers.


What are the opportunities for marketers around mobile wallets?

“If you have a wallet, there are other things inside that wallet that are not just credit cards,” said Tomes.
With the rise of the bot, the smartphone fits within the value change, allowing a mobile wallet to give consumers a deeper experience when they shop.


“Mobile wallets fit within the value chain because they can greet you in a personalized way, they can make recommendations for what would be useful for you to purchase, they are making your payment more convenient and then they make the ability to retain you as a business more exciting,” said Tomes.


And this is where the difference between a credit card and a mobile wallet becomes evident. It becomes an opportunity to optimize the whole value chain.


“You can deliver a very magical experience to your customers at every moment of intention along that purchasing cycle.”


A marketer can see where a consumer has clicked, when they bought something, or whether they ended up buying something else. It’s now possible to present the consumer with a product in an online store that they are more incentivized to buy. If they like that experience, they are more likely to come back to shop for more, Tomes said.


By applying mobile wallet technology with other customer engagement technologies like beacons and big data, the same cool experience can be replicated in the physical.


“The mobile wallet is well beyond the transaction. The transaction is just one micro moment in a shopping experience, or a travel experience, or a hotel experience. And now we have to think, how do mobile wallet applications help me, as a business deliver that core experience to customers?”

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