How Mobile Payments Can Go Mainstream

Every morning, you check for three things before you leave the house: phone, wallet and keys. But what if you only needed to look for two or even one?

The solution to this equation is the digital wallet, and tech giants such as Google, Apple and PayPal have already revolutionized the mobile payments space. Using modern technologies, mobile payment solutions allow consumers to purchase items via mobile apps. However, despite their growing popularity, 80 percent of consumers still express some hesitancy about using mobile payment services.

For mobile payment solutions to become the dominate payment option, vendors need to focus on two key aspects: convenience and simplicity.

Convenience
In addition to basic security concerns, many consumers aren't yet convinced that mobile payments provide any real value over traditional cash or credit cards. Payment providers need to prove the benefit of using your phone to make purchases. It's incumbent upon the solution providers to give consumers reasons to overcome the extra burden of using a mobile device for a transaction. Consumers will be more likely to convert to mobile payments when convenience is proven.

To deliver on the convenience factor, payment providers should work to better understand the context around app usage. Unlike cash or credit cards, mobile's advanced technology has the power to personalize a user's experience. For example, what if while using a mobile payment solution to order food or coffee, the retailer knew what your most recent orders were and allowed you to reorder? In fact, would you even need to stand in line at all? Imagine walking into a quick-serve restaurant, placing your order on your phone, taking a picture of the group you're seated with and having your food brought directly to you as you're identified through your picture.

Retail integration with multiple payment providers can help improve the convenience of mobile payments. Rather than forcing consumers to use a specific payment provider, a retailer should provide alternate payment options. If a consumer is able to use Apple Pay, PayPal or another service across multiple retailers, the convenience of mobile payments across stores will drive mass adoption. When consumers can handle a variety of shopping needs with one mobile payment service, convenience will peak.

Simplicity
No matter the provider, mobile payment apps should be easy to use and simple to adopt. If consumers are forced to jump through time-consuming or complex registration hoops, they're likely to assume that the many benefits of mobile payments aren't worth the installation hassles.

Mobile payment providers must ensure that their solutions are easy to set up. Similarly, mobile solutions should be simple to use on an everyday basis. When fully adopted, the number of daily mobile payments will be astronomical. PayPal alone already handles almost 11.5 million transactions daily.

Credit cards have taken over cash payments through simplicity. Can a mobile app be as simple as pulling out a single card in your wallet? Forward-thinking providers need to develop solutions that can handle an influx of potential users, guaranteeing that each transaction, no matter how small, is as easy as the next and provides a greater value to the consumer through the aforementioned convenience.

Ensuring that solutions are convenient and simple to use are the two most effective ways to increase the rate at which consumers adopt mobile payment solutions. Although providers can struggle to find the right selling points, it's clear that mobile payments have their place in the digital wallet.

Erik Burckart is the chief technology officer at PointSource, a design and development firm that specializes in mobile strategies.