Monday, May 11, 2015

Apple Pay Has a Big Future if Nielsen Reports are Anything To Go By

Reports by Nielsen, the New York and Diemen based American global measurement and information firm indicate that:

  • 45 percent of consumers have used a scanned QR/barcode to process mobile payments,
  • 37 percent have made mobile payments using Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies,
  • 24 percent have used a mobile credit card reader and
  • 22 percent a mobile peer-to-peer app to pay for goods and services.

Of all the mobile m-commerce applications that have been used by consumers, a mobile based payment service that has a  feature used the most by consumers is likely to receive the most adoption. This is supported by an infographic designed by eMerchantBroker dubbed, The Evolution of Mobile Payments. The Apple Pay that was officially announced by Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook on September 2014 uses sensors to enable users to process payments for goods and services by simply swiping their smartphones.

In this regard, the Apple Pay service uses exactly the form of technology reported by Nielsen to have the highest rate of adoption. Just as in the case of other Quick Response Code reader technologies, the user of an Apple Pay service simply has to swipe their iPhones to have the payment done without having to pull out any plastic or cash for the same. Gone are days when you would patiently wait for a network to process your transaction.

Apple has done even more to make this Pay service really convenient. They are revolutionizing the credit card and debit card industry by digitizing the plastic money through its alliances with MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and American Express Co.

It is supporting debit and credit cards from institutions including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital One Financial Corp., Citigroup Inc., and a host of other key financial institutions that represent about 83 percent of the United States’ total credit-card purchase.