Category: Technology | Page 4

GoOpti Expanding its Reach, Getting More Riders Where They Need to Go

Getting to the airport is not necessarily an easy thing to do. Driving yourself isn’t always practical, nor is it always pleasant after a long flight. Public transportation and shuttles can be difficult to schedule; you have to work with available times, and pick-up and drop-off points may not always be nearby.

GoOpti is looking to change all that, in an expanding number of locations across Europe.

Europe News Roundup: Mobile Payments Have Taken Off

A look at European payments news this week reveals that financial technology is alive and well across Europe. Visa released statistics on explosive growth in mobile payments, and several new partnerships are expanding the ways Europeans – and visitors – can pay.

Exploding Internet Access Plus Ubiquitous Smartphone Use Equals Digital Payments Boom

All the digital payments innovation will pay off in some crazy numbers soon, says a report from non-profit think tank The Demand Institute, which is run by Nielsen and The Conference Board.

That strengthens the future of PFs worldwide, as cashless payments could result in over $10 trillion in additional consumer spending over the next 10 years, the report says. That figure is hand in hand with the report’s assertion that by 2020, the Internet will be available to over 1.2 billion more people than use it today. Much of that access will be through smartphones.

Is $75 Billion In 2016 Mobile In-Store Payments Realistic?

At least one research firm thinks in-store mobile payments, mobile wallets usage, is set to explode in the U.S., despite accounts of slow uptake by consumers and crawling installation of NFC terminals by retailers.

The Business Insider Intelligence’s 2016 Mobile Payments Report predicts volume of in-store mobile payments will hit $75 billion this year and $503 billion by 2020. The authors say despite the hurdles of consumer habit and spotty availability, wallets’ benefits to both retailers and shoppers, such as security, speedier checkout process and app integration will boost usage quickly and heavily.

It Was Hip To Be Square In Portland

Not only can small merchants ride the coming wave of mobile payments, they can make more in tips. That was part of the fun learned from a two-month Square promotion in Portland, Ore., that ended last week. The drive highlighted the company’s NFC/chip readers in a marketing siege of a city chosen for the tactic because of its high implementation of the new Square hardware and its commerce counterculture.

Apple got in on the techfest because its wallet Apple Pay is the other side of the two-way connection Square needs to boost not only wallet use but comfort with wallet use. Apple hosted a merchant tutorial on Apple Pay in one of its stores one day during the Square campaign.

Gaming Payments Gets Serious: Tencent Drops $8.6 Billion On Game Firm

Of all of the various payments hotspots that payment facilitators need to focus on, gaming—and all of its in-app potential—may be the one of the most lucrative. Witness Tencent Holdings Ltd., which this week confirmed plans to drop $8.6 billion to buy an 84 percent slice of the Finnish maker of the Clash Of Clans mobile game.

Games generate one payment for the initial purchase—which, for a popular game, is tantalizing enough on its own—and then a potentially unlimited number of follow-on purchases as players purchase new weapons or characters or cheats or various upgrades. Game companies are generally great at creating the games, but they need help facilitating effortless payments within those games. Enter PFs.

Apple Pay Announcement Looks Like A Zero But Could Be A Hero

As exciting as Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference can be, the news from Monday’s keynote seemed on its face sort of ho-hum for payment facilitators. The new abilities within the upcoming release of the iOS 10 mobile and macOS desktop software updates are for now merely more options that PFs have to consider along with their merchant clients. The long term view of these Apple payment moves is scintillating however, given the higher incomes of iOS and MacOS users and the huge gap between what they spend on apps compared to Android users.

The features will allow merchants to add Apple Pay to their Safari browser shopping portal’s payment suite, and for merchants to develop apps for iMessage users to use for P2P transactions. In the short term, there are challenges. Shoppers with desktops must have not only a Mac, for communicating with the iPhone or Apple Watch that authenticates the payment, but the Safari browser that Apple owns.

Feds Peer Into Payments Regulatory Crystal Ball—And Get Headaches

For whatever consolation it offers, the feds overseeing payments-related regulatory issues are as apprehensive as payment facilitators. As the payments world is undergoing massive change in new and different ways of handling payments—an area where PFs lead—Justice and Treasury top brass are struggling to figure out the right ways to execute oversight.

Indeed, there’s even talk of adopting a European-like saferoom approach, where startups have a limited window to explore and innovate without worrying about regulators cracking down. It’s a saferoom in the sense that no idea is too risky to not be explored, even for a limited period of time. In other words, regulators are toying with the idea of whether it’s sometimes best to not regulate at all.

With A New Mission, Walmart Pay Goes Live In Arkansas, Texas

Now that Walmart no longer has to pretend to be support CurrentC—thanks to its effective demise, courtesy of MCX’s concession to reality—the largest retail chain announced Monday (May 16) that it had rolled out Walmart Pay across 110 Walmart stores in Arkansas and 480 Walmart stores in Texas. Walmart Pay the concept was announced by the merchant back in December. Walmart Pay has been rolled out in a way very different than Walmart wanted to do a mobile payment, but it’s a model that has been obviously shaped by Apple Pay.

Like Apple Pay, it supports “any major credit, debit, pre-paid or Walmart gift card.” But unlike Apple Pay, it works across iOS and Android devices. And unlike Apple Pay and every other NFC payment method, it can work on a far wider range of phones—especially older phones—that do not support NFC. All the phone needs is the ability to download an app and enough of a camera to scan a QR code. But Walmart Pay suffers a major weakness that Apple Pay doesn’t. As long as the shopper is willing to use the default card in Apple Pay, all that the shopper need do is hold the phone right above the card reader. It doesn’t need to be connected to any network, nor does the shopper have to launch an app, key in a password or manipulate the app in any way. Contrast that with Walmart Pay, which requires the shopper to find and then open the Walmart app, select Walmart Pay and then manually activate the camera and then scan a register QR code—which as many shoppers will confirm, isn’t always that easy to do on the first or second attempt.

Why The ChasePay/Starbucks Deal Makes A Difference

When Chase revealed on Tuesday (Feb. 23) that it had cut a deal with Starbucks to incorporate ChasePay into the SBUX mobile app this year, it signaled that ChasePay needs to be taken seriously. More precisely, it means that the mocha-merchant mobile-powerbroker takes ChasePay seriously, which is perhaps the best endorsement it could get.

ChasePay’s previous big deal was with MCX, which, to be fair, isn’t exactly the endorsement you want in mobile payments to be taken seriously. But for those care about mobile money—and who in this space doesn’t?—nobody disses Starbucks.