by John Berkley, Senior Vice President, Product
Apple unveiled an update to its popular iPhone earlier today to much fanfare. Just as the rumor-mill suggested, the new iPhone 5C will include Touch ID – a fingerprint sensor built into the home button. The fingerprint sensor can be used to unlock the phone or make payments.
iPods, iPads, now iPay? There is massive speculation in the media right now about if this new technology will be the killer mobile payments app that the industry has been pining for. While the “fingerprint to pay” idea offers some compelling reasons for consumers to put their plastic cards away, if Apple is to have any success in mobile payments, it will have to come from point-of-sale (POS) partnership – something we have yet to see them do. “Fingerprint to pay” has to be just as easy on the merchant as it is on the consumer.
Small Businesses Will Make or Break Mobile Payment Adoption
Small businesses in America account for 54% of all sales. If a 16-year-old barista can’t figure out how to ring up a fingerprint sale at her employer’s coffee shop, consumers will stop trying to use their iPhones to pay and go back to swiping cards. No one wants to be the jerk that holds up the line.
Local merchants do not have technology staff, marketing time or payments expertise. They need fast, easy and proven solutions to compete with mass retailers. That’s why they rely so heavily on their local POS reseller to tell them what payments integrations work best for their business type and their POS software.
PayPal’s Beacon: A Different Look at Mobile Payments
POS integration is what PayPal has in mind with its new Beacon device for hands-free check-ins and payments. The device was designed specifically to scale across point-of-sale systems with the intent that it will be an open platform for merchants to create ways to connect and potentially bring in customers to their stores.
Mobile payments are clearly at a tipping point. Hardware and software integrations that take the merchant experience just as seriously as the consumer experience will be the future leaders of the payments industry.
