Mobile Money and Mobile Commerce -is now the inflection point?

Back in 2008, I posted my very first entry related to mobile money by blogging about the rise of the mobile wallet here .

Progress has been painfully slow since then, both because of squabbling between the key stakeholders over who owns which part of the ecosytem and also because of the failure to address consumer concern over payment security.

It is inevitable though that mobile money will grow, both because of the increasing convenience of this payment payment (especially for the "unbanked population") and also because of changing consumer attitudes (electronic payment, even on mobile, is safer than carrying cash in your pocket).

Terrapinn produced this nice Infographic last month summarising the history of mobile payments from 1997 up  to today.2011 marked a significant turning point in the evolution of mobile payments with Google launching their Mobile Wallet, making payments simpler (See more in Google's video here).

There is a whole lot more to mobile money than just mobile wallets and a lot of talk is based around mobile payments, especially those using contactless or NFC technology. As Apple´s iOS6 gets set for launch and the new iPhone is tipped to be NFC-enabled, we will see a raft of new mobile payment players rushing to claim their stake in this space.

Sapient has produced a very detailed Infographic with some interesting background information about mobile payments. I have edited the graphic into readable chunks and you can see the first one below. Susbequent ones will follow in a next post.

US Closing Mobile Usage Gap

I posted a piece back in January this year about the Rise of the Mobile Wallet and was pleased to see that it was quoted in an Experian Consumer Research Report about the US Mobile Usage Gap.

The report suggests that while only 2% of US consumers regularly make purchases via a mobile device, already 16% use mobile banking services, roughly equally distributed among different age groups.

Interestingly, the research shows that the age profile of GPS users is heavily skewed towards 18-24 year olds, with a severe drop off in usage rates in the age groups 45-54 and over.

Mobile advertising acceptance is confirmed as being higher than for traditional web, with over a third of consumers who are online for at least one hour a week rating themselves as interested in receiving ads via their mobile provided there is a tangible incentive.

You can read the full 9-page report by clicking on the title of this post.

Osaifu-Ketai: NTT DoCoMo's Mobile Wallet

I'd like to share an interesting presentation on the development of NFC contactless mobile payments as described by NTT DoCoMo in Japan during the recent GSMA Mobile Money Summit in Cairo.

The latest figures released show that the uptake of mobile payments has been dramatic, and that at the same time as the number of retails outlets accepting this form of payment grew to 600,000, so did subscriber numbers for the service, to 28,5 million.

Apart from the cultural factors at play to explain this successful uptake (tech savvy consumers, on-the-go lifestyle etc), key to sucess has been the succesful partnerships established amongst chipset manufacturers, handset vendors, service providers and Mobile Network Operators.

This has made mobile payments the payment option of choice for a wide range of transactions, from loyalty card point collection, to ticketing, employee ID card authentication and many more.

You can read more about this in the presentation by clicking on the title of this post.

Best of Barcelona-Mobile Startups to Watch:Codilink

BARCELONA -I'm starting a new initiative this week, where I'll be highlighting local mobile/web companies based in Barcelona and track their achievements and future plans.

First off the starting block, is barcode scanning experts Codilink, set up by Ben Chesser and 2 other partners 4 years ago and now operating in Spain, UK and Mexico.Their main line of business are M-coupons, M-loyalty schemes and M-ticketing through the use of 2-D barcodes and count among their clients Audi, L'Oreal and Heineken. The company can now lay claim to having rolled out over 34 million barcodes worldwide.

Barcodes come in 3 formats, QRs (mainly used in Japan), Datamatrix and Bidis (the common name used in Spain). Bidis differentiate themselves by having been specifically designed so as to be scanned from a mobile phone screen, so are seen by some as being the more sophisticated solution.

Codilink prizes itself on its technology that allows its scanners to read any format of barcode, thus reducing investment costs for marketing campaigns.It also believes that developments in the Mobile Wallet concept (see earlier post) will accelerate the demand for barcode-based ticketing and vouchers. Already, Codilink established an agreement in Mexico with large scale cinema operator Cinepolis to replace paper tickets completely with an on-screen mobile barcode.

The future? Codilink is looking to expand rapidly in new markets and is eyeing India with particular interest (it has already conducted market tests there) and at the same time is attracting interest from OEMs looking to buy into barcode technology. Rumour has it that an offer from Motorola was rejected but that new deals could be in the pipeline...

2008 & The Rise of the Mobile Wallet

It's a popular time to make predictions for mobile trends in 2008 and there are some pretty good ones out there. I am going against the trend by not creating yet another list, but have to express my surprise at the lack of mention of the 'mobile wallet' in most bloggers' predictions.

FierceWireless published a summary yesterday that showed that the value of contactless m-payments in the US is expected to reach $820m by 2013 (according to ABI Research).

I believe that 2008 will see a leap forward in the development of the ‘mobile wallet’ and the launch of new handsets capable of performing the same transactions of a traditional credit card by using contactless NFC technology.This is backed up by ABI Research's latest forecast, where they predict a 10-fold increase in shipments of NFC handsets in 2008.

With operators, regulators, manufacturers and financial institutions scheduled to get together in Cairo in May at a GSMA Summit to thrash out a global framework for m-payments, a whole range of new services could become widely available in key markets by 2009.

Operators have too much at stake to ignore this opportunity to impose their own standards for m-payments and thus regain a modicum of control over their customer base in the face of increasingly open development platforms.

The question, however, is this: will a disruptive newcomer step in to offer an alternative should operators and other stakeholders fail to agree in May on a global deployment model?