Almost every year for the last decade, those who have followed the mobile payments industry have heard the expectant statement, "This is the year for mobile payments." This year is no exception. We see the stories about mass adoption of mobile payments in other parts of the world, so we wonder, why not here in the United States? A U.S.-centric mobile payments conference I attended recently had as a recurring theme the notion that mobile payments in the United States had not yet caught on because providers had not yet developed an overall package of elements that would create a compelling mobile experience for the user.
In 1998, former Intel chief executive officer Andy Grove, coined the term "strategic inflection point" to describe a fundamental change in any business, technological or not. He said that for a change to achieve mass adoption by consumers, it had to be at least 10 times better than consumers' current experience—something Grove referred to as the "10X" factor. Achieving the 10X factor for mobile payments will likely involve lower costs, increased comfort with security and privacy, new functionality, enhanced user friendliness, increased convenience, or a "cool" factor, such as new technology often offers.
Conference panelists in general shared the view that the payment transaction itself is one small—but critical—element of the overall mobile experience. One point they made is that, because of their experience with other payment methods, consumers expect the mobile payment to be secure, fast, and accurate. These panelists echoed the work of the Mobile Payments Industry Workgroup (MPIW), a joint endeavor between the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and Atlanta and the major stakeholders in the U.S. mobile ecosystem. The MPIW was created four years ago to facilitate the development of a vision for a mobile payments environment that will be effective, secure, and ubiquitous. This group has met frequently to address the issues of technology, standards, security, privacy, functionality, regulation, and adoption barriers. You can read results of these efforts on the Boston Fed's website.
Smartphone penetration levels continue to rise and are expected to approach saturation level within the next five years. Nevertheless, consumer research studies consistently show that not only are consumers very concerned about security and privacy when it comes to using their smartphones for mobile banking and payments, but they also are highly satisfied with their current payment method. The industry can address the security and privacy issues through a strong consumer education and awareness campaign. However, moving consumers from their current habits will require the achievement of a strategic inflection point—something that many payments industry stakeholders have tried to achieve over the years but have failed to do so.
Portals and Rails would like to know what you think are the other elements of the overall mobile experience needed to achieve the 10X factor?
By David Lott, a retail payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed