RSSGartner: SMS-based money transfer will be bigger than mobile browsing, search
By Tim Conneally | Published November 18, 2009, 4:36 PM
Technology market research company Gartner Inc. has released a report which predicts what the top ten mobile applications will be in 2012 based on current activity in the smartphone field, including such factors as consumer and industry interest, potential revenue, and existing business models.
Based upon this information, Gartner predicts the number one "killer app" that everyone will have on their mobile device will be one that is currently uncommon in the United States, but available elsewhere in the world: Money Transfer.
More important than mobile communication or entertainment applications, Gartner predicts that SMS-based money transfer is the next big thing for smartphones. It already exists in a number of other markets, but Gartner says the regulatory kinks need to be worked out before it can truly flourish.
"Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering," Gartner's announcement today said. "On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory." The rest of Gartner's list, in descending order, included: Location-based services, mobile search, mobile browsing, mobile health monitoring, mobile payment, near field communication services, mobile advertising, mobile instant messaging, and mobile music.
Items six and seven on Gartner's list (mobile payment and near-field communication services) are issues related to one another and to the transfer of money. These two application classes have been closely linked since NTT DoCoMo debuted near-field "Wallet Phones" in 2004, which turn a user's phone into a sort of Speedpass dongle which can be "charged" with money or credits, and passed in front of a reader for instant transactions.
Gartner says the main difficulty in propagating any of these money-related technologies comes in uniting the mobile carriers with the banks.
"The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of Internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers," Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner said. "Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power."
This actually has a chance to give a serious blow to the #1 ripoff artists in the world: the credit card companies, paypal, google checkout and the like. Why the HELL do they deserve to be paid 2-3 PERCENT of your REVENUE? That's an INSANE amount of money when they give you absolutely NOTHING FOR IT (they'll always hit the merchant or customer with the final cost of some disputed transaction -- they NEVER EVER take a hit themselves).
Here comes new technology, that if will charge just 1% less, will IMMEDIATELY become widespread because the cost to deploy would be covered in less than a year and become pure profit thenafter... Why do I use a credit card instead of a debit card today? ONLY BECAUSE I get 1% cashback, while I know the merchant is paying 3%+ on that transaction basically sponsoring my cashback... So give me my 1% cashback with SMS payment, make my funds guaranteed (like cash), but only charge the merchant 2% and it's a sure overnight success...
If I punch in my PIN on my smartphone in a non-trojan/keylogger-capable mode (think Windows UAC), or better-- swipe my finger on an integrated bio reader, basically GUARANTEEING I am the person who authorized the transaction, then nobody needs to waste time checking for my signature/ID, counting change, etc -- it's the equivalent of cash. It'll trim at least 30 seconds on "drive thru" purchases... You would already pay by the time you're at the window -- after you confirmed the accuracy of the purchase and made minor last moment changes... It'll let you buy tickets to movies without standing in line even for the kiosk machine -- no physical tickets needed... At the checkpoint you'll flash your smartphone next to some handheld reader (gate keeper person) and you'll immediately be let in. Easily, the inherent addt'l benefit to the authentication portion of smartphone payment will eventually replace standard door locks everywhere, and site/service specific passwords. Scenario: you're at work, you want to log-in to your personal bank. You just type in your username, press "SMS authenticate" and you'll receive a msg on your smartphone. You type your PIN or swipe your finger on the smartphone and immediately log-in to your bank account. No man-in the middle attack possible. Even a hijacked session won't do the attacker any good other than seeing your balance, since any money transfer (at least to new destinations) would require an SMS-sent authorization...
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|I don't know why money-transfer by sms is a benefit. Online money transfer is a great feauture for online shopping, but in the offline world i can pay by card or normal money...SMS-Money wouldn't be a improvement
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|the sound of crickets
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