Roughly two dozen retail industry leaders, including Target and Wal-Mart, reportedly collaborating to create mobile phone payment system; system would cut out banks, drive sales and customer loyalty
Cindy Allen
LOS ANGELES
,
March 7, 2012
(Industry Intelligence)
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Roughly two-dozen industry leaders including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. are reportedly collaborating to create a mobile phone payment system, Forbes reported March 7.
The system, which would effectively turn mobile phones into credit cards and cut banks out of the transaction, would drive both sales and customer loyalty.
The mobile payment system would constitute the type of simpler, faster payment option that is increasingly expected by consumers, in particular millennials. It would also provide for the type of frictionless customer experience that consumers have come to expect, which would ultimately drive brand loyalty.
The retailers’ efforts to develop a mobile phone payment system is indicative of at least three seismic shifts that are occurring in the marketplace:
• The mobile payment system will compete directly with credit card companies, turning the companies’ one-time best customers into competitors.
• Mobile billing could potentially service as a vehicle through which retailers can communicate directly with customers.
• Mobile payment systems would provide retailers with valuable knowledge about customer sales and behavior.
By 2015, the mobile payment market is forecast to nearly triple in size to more than US$670 billion.
The primary source of this article is Forbes, New York, New York, on March 7, 2012.
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