With smartphones seeing improvements every year, mobile payments increasingly offer a convenient and secure way for smartphone users to make payments. Simply take out your phone and scan it at a compatible terminal, and within a few seconds you’re done. And let’s be honest, we were probably using our smartphones while we were waiting in line anyways.
However, there are several different mobile payment solutions on the market today. Android Pay and Apple Pay aside, there are “mobile wallets” such as PayPal and the new Rambus Unified Payment Platform, and more proprietary or brand-specific solutions such as Starbucks’ mobile app and McDonald’s’ upcoming mobile app. In fact, a report shows that PayPal’s and Starbucks’ apps are the most used mobile payment apps.
In an ideal world, you would be able to make payments at any major retail store or restaurant from a single application, for example, Android Pay over NFC. The consumer would be able to store all their credit cards and rewards programs on a single, secure app and make payments at any NFC-compatible terminal. In reality, the non-standardization of mobile payment solutions means that consumers have to load multiple apps onto their phones, making mobile payments overall less convenient. Additionally, doing so may be less secure if you have to store credit card information across multiple apps with questionable security. As an example, having to wait for the Starbucks app to load when I’m waiting for my tasteless caffeine boost is less than ideal, and I do question having my credit card information not being stored behind a virtual number like it is in Android Pay. Making a general standard for all mobile payments to adhere to and allowing consumers to pay and earn rewards all from a single, convenient, and secure app.
That being said, standardizing the whole mobile payments industry is probably not the easiest thing in the world, as illustrated by XKCD:
Sources:
https://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/news/mcdonalds-gets-in-the-game-with-mobile-order-and-pay/
http://www.pymnts.com/news/mobile-payments/2017/rambus-launches-unified-payment-platform/
https://xkcd.com/927/