Tech Mobile Contactless Marketing Could Turn The U.S. EMV Frown Upside Down

More than a decade after the U.S. payments community tried and failed to make contactless payments work, EMV resentment and a well-funded mobile payment app movement may make U.S. contactless payments not merely viable, but vibrant—perhaps as soon as late 2018.

One result could be that the U.S. adopts mobile contactless payments before and in higher numbers than chip cards as tech giants like Apple and Samsung and Google blitz consumers with mobile payment app marketing that was not a factor when the country tried contactless a decade ago.

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ExxonMobil Now Accepts ApplePay, But Rejects NFC. Bad Move

Wanting to avoid having to purchase and install NFC-friendly card readers at its stations, ExxonMobil has opted to use ApplePay but only as an in-app method, from within the petro company’s own app. Although it might make short-term economic sense from ExxonMobil’s perspective, it may be a big hit with over the long-term and it could damage some consumer perceptions of NFC payment convenience.

ApplePay has several solid user-experience advantages and cashiers at retailers that accept a lot of ApplePay transactions (think Whole Foods, TraderJoe’s or McDonald’s) typically find it the fastest payment experience. The service will be offered initially at 6,000 Exxon and Mobil gas stations in 46 states, with an additional 2,000 stores slated to join by this summer.

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To A PF, The World Of Parking Is Doing Anything But Standing Still

Pity the poor standalone parking meter, nestled between communities’ sidewalks and streets. A dozen years ago, five million were scattered across the U.S.. Today, according to the International Parking Institute, no one even bothers to count them any more. New York City is preparing to abandon its 85,000 meters to a PF-fueled mobile system, joining Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh with similar plans.

The movement is hardly surprising. Many of those metal poles could only handle coins and retrofitting them for magstripe—let alone EMV or NFC—is expensive and short-sighted. To get much of the money from those poles requires a municipal employee/contractor to physically move from pole to pole. The system for fining those who disobey the parking rules is equally inefficient. Enter Jon Ziglar, the CEO of PF Parkmobile, whose company is behind many of those municipal parking meter obliteration efforts. His vision is far cleaner. A mobile app pays for the space and can even text a driver when the time is about to run out. But this gets better. Parkmobile is in pilots today with Ford and BMW to integrate the app directly into cars. Marry the efficiency of a mobile app with a smartcar that can park itself and parking takes on a delightfully 21st Century shine.

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