Blog
What's in your wallet, and is that your coffee?
July 31, 2013 by Richard Buckle — Founder and CEO, Pyalla Technologies, LLC
It's good to be back behind my desk after a couple of weeks off. The July 4th week was spent alongside a lake in Minnesota — something I have wanted to do ever since our daughter married a young lad from Minneapolis.
| Trackside, overseeing the BBQ after an afternoon deluge put an end to the day's activities. |
It was also a time to spend trackside, improving my skills behind the wheel of our racecar. Good friends from southern California, Brian and Jan Kenny, joined us at our home track outside Denver.
Unfortunately, Brian had wrecked his Corvette on the wall on the final turn at Laguna Seca only days before. This was just a week after I wrecked my Corvette on the wall of the back straight at Infineon. No worries — as the Corvette was repaired quickly and ready to go, I leant him our Viper.
Brian is a gadget guy. If it's new, he has it — cameras, laptops, phones, or tablets. And being the gadget guy he is, he picked up on cloud computing quickly. He's bought into iCloud and, specifically, Apple's Passbook app.
Whether he's using his iPhone to present his United boarding pass or to order at Starbucks, the phone's GPS interacting with the Passbook app ensures that the right application is invoked. It's simple to set up easy and it's fast to use. Before I could get out my real wallet, he had the Starbucks QR code on screen, ready to scan.
For portions of our society that include Brian, there's growing acceptance of electronic wallets that hold account information and simplify their daily routine. While I have failed to embrace Apple's Passbook app — a reluctance based solely on my lack of faith in the oversight of others who have too much information about me — I do have a PayPal account that I use more randomly than selectively.
As far as living in a developed country goes, I haven't experienced enough pain as yet to dive headfirst into the whole electronic wallet gig. I have my plastic and there's always an ATM nearby, thank goodness.
On the other hand, I spend much of my time online. My email inbox never seems to be empty — there's always something arriving at all times of the day.
If I don't know the author I am quick to trash the message. However, and on a whim, I opened an invitation that arrived via LinkedIn — a social media channel I support wholeheartedly.
"Check out the web site, Paymenteye," it said. So, curious, I did. In browsing I came across a submission by a guest writer, Pankaj Kumar, CMO of F1Soft Intl., "Mobile payments — A new world of cashless and cardless payments."
"Mobile wallet in developed countries is just accumulation of existing payment methods which resolve the issue of carrying too many cards which involves credit/debit and loyalty cards," he said. "The only benefits the consumers of developed countries can avail are easy and faster services through their existing resources."
But what followed really caught my attention, "While a mobile wallet in developing countries is more than a substitution of a transaction instrument. It's fast, secured and relatively inexpensive with a very high value to its users."
In other words, where there's no history of carrying plastic, an electronic wallet represents a big step up, improving access to funds, whereas societies already carrying wallets stuffed with cards show little enthusiasm for replacing their wallets with something managed by their phones.
As for me, I haven't yet reached that point where I have my phone with me all the time — I'm still the one who reaches for his wallet and car keys before even thinking about taking the phone with me.
I turned to my good friend Yash Kapadia, who is CEO of OmniPayments Inc. and highly active in the payments platform and processing marketplace.
"Acceptance of mobile wallets outside of developed countries is breaking new ground," he said."With no previous knowledge or experience with plastic cards, indeed credit of any kind, I am seeing that with greater access to mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets — everyone wants an iPhone no matter their financial disposition), communities are beginning to appreciate how they can transact business via a mobile phone."
However, Yash said, "To suggest that they are switching to electronic wallets for all that they do may be a stretch — what I am seeing is acceptance of just enough technology to get started and the plastic involved is mostly to do with ATM cash withdrawals. This is particularly the case where the plastic is tied to government payments programs, which I am watching gain considerable user attraction in many developing countries."
Not everyone is a gadget guy! Not everyone is anxious to load up his mobile wallet, replicating what is already on his plastic, even when it takes little effort and the results can lead to easier and faster service.
Much of the debate in developed countries has failed to demonstrate real value to the societies they address — pain points haven't risen to the point where they are prepared to change.
Furthermore, in developed countries like North America, almost every family belongs to a club, attends events and, in general, actively participates in organized activities of almost every type imaginable. And cash is still king! Plastic may be needed to register, but once on site, it's all cash, and this model will be with us for many years to come.
Eventually mobile wallets will find broader acceptance. I sense the inevitability of it all. But in the meantime, keep working on the value proposition and keep reassuring me that it's about to happen.
And maybe, just maybe, I will develop the habit of leaving home with my phone. Until then, I will still be pulling out my Starbucks loyalty card as I order my next coffee!
Read more about mobile banking.
About Richard Buckle
Richard Buckle is the founder and CEO of Pyalla Technologies, LLC. He has enjoyed a long association with the Information Technology (IT) industry as a user, vendor, and more recently, as an industry commentator, thought leader, columnist and blogger. Richard participates in the HPE VIP Community where he is part of their influencer team.
