1. Mobile Wallet Solutions from Mobile Platform Providers (Apple, Google, Etc.)
When we talk about mobile wallet “apps” from the mobile platform providers, you now understand that what we mean is an app that serves as the interface to a comprehensive mobile wallet solution where all your bank cards, bank accounts, coupons, loyalty cards, receipts and more are duplicated on your phone. These simply don’t exist yet here in the U.S.
There are so-called “mobile wallet solutions” of a sort today – but not the kind that will exist in the future. For example, U.S. carrier Sprint introduced its Sprint Mobile Wallet back in October 2010. But this initiative is designed for online purchases, not purchases of physical goods in the real world where a tap of your phone at checkout deducts the payment from your personal bank account.
It’s expected that the mobile platform providers are building more complete mobile wallet solutions that use NFC, however. Google introduced support for NFC technology into its Android mobile operating system (version 2.3, aka “Gingerbread”) and it recently pushed out an update that makes that function work both ways – read and write – a necessary component to any mobile payments system.
More on Google’s NFC plans: Google Considering a Mobile Payments Service, January 2011
Apple, too, has various NFC-related patents on file and has hired a well-known expert in the field, but, as usual, is completely silent on what it has in development. We can only speculate what the company is working on by tracking its patent applications – like this one spotted in February 2011 which shows an e-wallet icon. The general expectation is that Apple’s e-wallet will work with the NFC technology built into a future iPhone.
Although few would ever bet against Apple, it’s still fair to say that implementing NFC and financial services for a mobile wallet solution of this scale requires significant investment and, frankly, a massive amount of work. Even a company as accomplished as Apple will find that to be complex challenge.
In addition, what the mobile platform solutions also have to deal with is how to handle – or ignore – the mobile carriers’ desire to be involved. While Apple has traditionally proved itself to be a company whose goal is to disrupt the control a carrier has over the handset, successful NFC solutions in other parts of the world have always had operator involvement. In fact, they’ve typically been joint programs launched via a partnership between banks and operators alongside support from handset manufacturers, not cases where a single player like Apple tries to go it alone. Of course, this is Apple. It could be the one to buck that trend.
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