The Lowdown on New Mobile Payment Options

More customers than ever before are choosing to pay with their mobile phones rather than selecting more traditional (and cumbersome) payment routes. This is an accelerating trend which shows no sign of relenting, and as smartphones grow incrementally smarter and faster with each successive generation, sector analysts expect the mobile device to be the primary conduit for transactions as the digital age grows.

But with so many payment schemes to choose from, selecting which scheme works best for your business can be a daunting prospect. Here, we investigate some of the best payment alternatives on offer, to keep any business flexible and anticipative of the needs of the future.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is the technical term for Google’s “wave and pay” technology, deployed to great effect in the Google Wallet service. Google Wallet facilitates easy and secure payment transactions both online and in-store, through an NFC reader; a device immediately recognizable to anyone who has stood in line at a coffee shop or book-store recently.

Businesses that as yet don’t have access to an NFC reader can purchase or rent the machine from First Data, Google’s partner in this venture. Android usrs can also use the Google Wallet, by downloading the app and waving their phone over the reader to make a payment rather than scrabbling around for coins and cash.

The usual card-present fees are payable for participating merchants, but with no supplementary charges incurred, making this option a great choice for any business-owner seeking to painlessly expand their customer base. By linking existing customer loyalty programs or Google Offers to the merchant wallet account, customers can claim rewards or redeem vouchers with a single hassle-free swipe.

Of course, there are other methods of putting together a pay-by-phone plan, methods that aren’t so reliant upon outside providers. Eggs in baskets is an old adage to be sure, but it still applies here, to what is after all a new and fast-changing technology. One notable approach in this field has been adopted recently by a popular casino site.

Gaming hub mFortune now hosts its own in-house pay by phone facility which enables players to make account deposits instantly by charging these sums directly to their phone bill. This eliminates the arduous task of having to input card details over a phone interface in order to access a playing account, and neatly sidesteps much of the fuss and bother around registering for online access.

Keeping track of customer outgoings becomes simple and streamlined, with an SMS sent after each deposit to provide immediate confirmation of what has been spent and where. Tethering individual account purchases to a phone bill is also advantageous in terms of internet security and confidentiality, so this approach is a win all-round and likely to see broader adoption in this sector.

Another way to address the banking security concerns of our increasingly cashless society is to forego paper-backed currencies entirely and opt instead for a secure digital currency like Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is fast becoming big business, as the potential of the blockchain technology that underpins it dawns upon leaders of industry across all sectors of activity. Bitcoin transactions are immediately applied and can be instantly tracked and confirmed within minutes, something no conventional banking account can realistically achieve.

BitcoinWallet provides an entry-level virtual wallet service that handles sending, receiving and tracking bitcoin transactions over a mobile phone app. This boils down to instant access to your virtual account, wherever you are in the world, with one swipe of a finger.

These options, taken together, are indicative of the triad of options a business has at its disposal – join an established scheme backed by a tech heavyweight, go it alone and fashion from scratch a bespoke payment option that works for you, or embrace a driver of the cashless revolution. Time and tide waits for no business, but sometimes it can help to surf a wave.