Europe Faces a “Tsunami” of Mobile Payment Options
A rapid surge in mobile payment initiatives is putting pressure on banks and mobile phone operators to move into the mobile payments industry quickly, after Deutsche Telekom and MasterCard announced they have formed a Europe-wide mobile payments partnership.
‘If financial service providers delay taking an active interest in mobile business developments, other competitors could rapidly set the tone in the mobile industry,’ said Thomas F. Dapp, an Economist with Deutsche Bank.
‘There is a sense of urgency among banks, mobile operators and others wishing to launch mobile payment services ahead of competitors,’ said Ben Regnard-Weinrabe, of Hogan Lovells. ‘Mobile P2P services are gaining momentum.’
Remember when mobile phones and credit cards used to be different?
Spanish operator Telefonica has become the latest telecom player to roll out a mobile payments scheme. The company has announced a number of global direct-to-bill deals with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Research in Motion, enabling millions of users to pay for content through their mobile phone bills.
Only days before, Google said it has started working with an undisclosed number of banking partners to streamline and improve its mobile wallet service, while on the same day UK bank NatWest launched TouchPay, a four-month trial for users of the iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 who can pay for purchases of £20 or less on British high streets from their current accounts through their iPhone.
Jonathan Bye, Senior Consultant at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London, calls the latest developments ‘more than a trend, it is a tsunami!’ Bye stresses that ‘for the first time in history retail banks are actually acting like retailers. What is interesting is the huge variety of mobile payment initiatives.’ Get your 2019 Quickbooks self-employed 50% off discount code here.
Dapp is expecting ‘cut-throat competition between banks’ and predicts ‘new opportunities for strategic alliances with the already established providers. The big internet platforms are focusing their efforts on the mobile market and successfully tapping into the preference of the internet-savvy generations to implement business models.’
Bye expects that ‘the range of options on offer is going to bewilder consumers and business users’ and stresses that ‘it is vital to have a simple and clear customer proposition.’ Bye thinks that we must ensure common standards and interoperability to guarantee success. ‘Competition is vital but so is collaboration.’
Author: Michiel Willems
Dutchman Michiel Willems LLM MA is based in central London as an international journalist in broadcast and print, specialised in UK current affairs, e-commerce, finance, business and legal news.
Michiel studied law and journalism in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and after gaining experience in Malaysia and India he returned to London in 2008 to embark on a career in writing and reporting.
With global study and work experience and an open mind, he currently works in central London as an associate editor, writer, voice over professional and radio reporter. Michiel has developed a great interest in the facts behind the headlines, the stories behind the statistics and the people behind the news.
His specialties are writing news stories, features, editorial comments, catchy standfirsts, drop quotes, captions, headers and headlines, commissioning, editing, conducting interviews, managing publications’ flatplans, radio reporting and gathering large amounts of information within a relatively small amount of time.
Michiel usually approaches a story from an original, relevant angle and likes to come up with fresh ideas for news stories and in-depth features. He speaks to a wide number of sources across the political, financial, business, legal and e-commerce sectors on a daily basis. Michiel has a broad network of contacts, in the UK as well as overseas, mainly consisting of bankers, lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, entrepreneurs, payment processors, regulators, trade associations, policymakers and politicians.
