Tag: mobile wallet

Mobile payments have moved into India with leaps and bounds

| January 18, 2016

The massively populated country has proven to be a very promising marketplace for smartphone wallets.

A new forecast has been issued with regards to the use of mobile payments in India and in which it has now been estimated that the considerable growth rate of the use of these transactions in the country may translate to $183 million by 2019.

In only three years, the market will be set to undergo a massive transformation that will lead to significant growth.

The smartphone ecosystem in India has been producing some very exciting movements as these devices catch on and start to cut into the feature phone share in a population that is more than one billion large. As this technology takes off, the online and mobile payments space has also been benefiting with wallet apps being downloaded at a staggering rate. Tech companies have been placing their focus on major economies around the world with release such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Alipay, but India’s offerings have been somewhat limited, so far.

There are about 12 major mobile payments players offering wallet apps within the country.

Mobile Payments Report - IndiaAmong the most popular mobile wallets currently available to smartphone users in India are M-Pesa, Paytm, Oxigen, MobiKwik, Freecharge, Citrus Pay, Airtel Money, mRupee, ItzCash and Zaakpay. Currently, the combined total of their active customer base is estimated to be around just over 125 million people. Paytm currently claims a massive 50 million of that total.

The results of a recent study conducted by RNCOS, a consultancy and research firm, showed that the current mobile wallet marketplace size in India is worth an estimated $53 million. That said, it has also predicted that within the next three years, that figure will skyrocket to $183 million, before the close of 2019.

That represents tremendous growth for mobile payments use, particularly when taking into consideration the fact that 38 percent of transactions in India are still completed with cash. Another 30 percent of the total market is taken up by bill payments and recharge accounts. At the moment, the primary obstacle faced within that marketplace has to do with the stability of the wireless data infrastructure, having their connection drop mid-transaction, while also worrying whether or not this technology is keeping their financial and other sensitive data secure.

NFC technology based wallet from Samsung Pay expanding

| January 12, 2016

The South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer is taking its mobile payments system into more countries.

Samsung Pay, the mobile payments system that uses NFC technology through the devices from the South Korean tech giant, will now be headed into a broader range of countries across the globe, expanding it well beyond its very limited initial release.

The mobile wallet will be available to consumers throughout a handful of additional countries worldwide.

In a recent tweet, Samsung expressed that while the NFC technology based mobile wallet is already available in the United States and South Korea, it will become available to millions of additional customers in the very near future. This is because it will be stepping into at least three new countries in the near future. The countries that have been identified, so far, include Australia, Singapore and Brazil. This will more than double the number of countries in which the service is available and will provide the company with a considerably larger opportunity to boost its user base.

Samsung followed up the expansion announcement of its NFC technology mobile wallet with more at CES 2016.

NFC Technology - Mobile PaymentsAt the Consumer Electronics Show 2016, which was held last week in Las Vegas, Samsung also unveiled a new line of NFC enabled smartwatches which would be compatible with its Samsung Pay service. This means that people won’t be limited to smartphones when they want to use mobile devices to pay for their products and service at checkout counters across the new range of countries where it will be available.

The Gear S2 smartwatch will have the mobile technology needed to be able to be used for contactless payments at points of sale that have NFC readers. Upon the initial release of the wearable technology devices, the Samsung Pay service will still be available only in South Korea and the United States. However, as the expansion of the service occurs later in 2016, it is likely that these gadgets will be able to be used there, as well.

This represents a growing trend of wearable technology devices that are becoming compatible with mobile payments. The use of NFC technology in the Gear S2 could help to push forward the adoption of both mobile payments and wearables, simultaneously, if Samsung is as successful as it hopes to be.