Huge Growth of Mobile Payments, Implications For Bitcoin
I was in the room when M-Pesa was first launched. As we sat in that conference room in a Nairobi hotel, few of us had any idea that this new baby would eventually grow so fast and so big. When M-Pesa was first launched that day in late 2006, it was designed as a micro-finance product. It was designed to enable the vast number of Africa's unbanked population - about 80% of them - to access banking services on their mobile devices. Also read "Is Facebook thinking about accepting bitcoin?" Later on, after a few successful runs involving employees and others, Safaricom decided to scale up....
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With the value of mobile payment transactions expected to reach $721 billion (US) globally by 2017, the slice of the pie for Bitcoin's taking is growing. This year alone, the value of mobile payment transactions is forecast to total $235.4 billion, a 44 percent jump from 2012's $163.1 billion, according to the latest figures from Gartner. The leading uses for mobile payments are money transfers -- which are said to account for 71 percent of 2013's total transaction value -- and merchandise purchases at 21 percent. Though bill payments are expected to grow by 44 percent this year, their....
A new service hopes to bring mobile bitcoin payments to the masses. The service, called Bits, has already demonstrated bitcoin payments made via text message from one mobile phone to another. Conceived by Cody Burns, who was a front-end software developer at COG1, a San Francisco-based web and mobile app company, Bits enables payments via SMS, QR codes or tapping together phones with near-field communications (NFC) capabilities. The company promises "almost zero fees" for making and receiving payments, and says payments should be processed in under 10 minutes. This isn't the only service....
Even though plenty of consumers are looking forward to using new and innovative mobile payment solutions, there are still a lot of security issues that need to be addressed. A recent study conducted by Ponemon Institute shows how mobile transactions lack proper security measures to keep payment data safe. As a result, there is a huge lack of confidence by both consumers and businesses. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has no issues securing mobile payments and is available for consumers all over the world.
In one of our previous articles, we have discussed about mobile payments and how its adoption is years behind schedule. We also discussed the need for new mobile banking and payment technologies to address not just the developed market, but also the developing markets. If these mobile based services are capable of running on any mobile phone, it can make a huge difference to both the company and the customers alike. It looks like we are reaching there sooner than expected. Following the success of M-Pesa and BitPesa, there is a new kid on the block aiming to revolutionize Bitcoin storage....
Mobile Economy is the "in-thing " now. The number of users using their mobile phones to make transactions and buy good and services is increasing day by day. Mobile money as we know it involves Mobile banking, M-commerce and wallet services. The rise of mobile payments in recent days has got people referring 2015 as the Year of Mobile Payments. We have seen drastic improvements in the way transactions happen. People are increasingly switching from physical and web based digital banking from their desktops to mobile phones. It should come as a surprise, as most of the smartphones available....