Verizon Wireless, AT&T,and T- Mobile plan to invest more than $100 million in a joint venture that lets consumers pay for goods with mobile phones.
The investment sets up a showdown between the venture, known as Isis, and rival Google’s technology, Google Wallet.
Verizon Wireless, AT&T,and T- Mobile plan to invest more than $100 million in a joint venture that lets consumers pay for goods with mobile phones.
The investment sets up a showdown between the venture, known as Isis, and rival Google’s technology, Google Wallet.
Verizon Wireless, AT&T,and T- Mobile have created the alliance to grab a piece of the market for mobile commerce, which lets consumers buy things by tapping devices against a reader at checkout. The market may reach $670 billion by 2015, Juniper Research says.
Worldwide mobile payments will generate $240 billion this year, growing two to three times that amount within the next five years, according to consulting firm Juniper Research.
Formed last year, Isis also would let consumers receive and redeem coupons via their mobile devices — in addition to making payments. The service, which will debut in several cities next year, will make money by charging marketers a fee for sending offers to consumers’ phones. Isis has also has built ties with the financial industry. It has partnerships with Visa Inc. (V), MasterCard Inc. (MA), Discover Financial Services (DFS) and American Express Co. (AXP)
Google Wallet, launched in June with Sprint, Citi, MasterCard, and First Data as initial partners, Google has already begun installing Google Wallet terminals at merchant cash registers. For now, it only works with Sprint’s Nexus S smartphone.
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Now if you guys don’t think mobile payments isn’t a big deal? You better rethink your thinking. All of the heavyweights are throwing big money at mobile payments technology NOW. As a business owner you need to be thinking about
- Preparing your business to be a “mobilized” business. This means making sure your business is able to be found when a consumer searches for the product or service on their mobile device. Oh, you don’t think people are searching on smart phones, tabletsm and internet enabled phones? Why do you think these big companies are investing money into mobile payments. More specifically why do you think a SEARCH company (Google) is LEADING the way in the mobile payments space?
- When consumers find you on their mobile device that you have a website that is viewable on a mobile device.
- Not as urgent as 1 and 2 but something that bears thought is, do you need to upgrade your electronic payment terminal to accommodate your customers? Now if your customers are mostly older people, more than likely you won’t have to do anything for a while. However, if you are a convenience store, coffee shop, or boutique type of place then you may want to think harder about this.
Moral of the story is this. I remember back in 96′ I was evangelizing the web to businesses and they were saying, “It’s just a fad. It won’t be around in 10 years.” Well you know how that story turned out. Mobile payments are at the same stage now. Don’t get caught with your pants down. Be ready for the inevitable.