VRL: Mobile Payments Set To Take Off

VRL Financial News, leading provider of market intelligence for the financial services industry, announced today that mobile phones are already capable of replacing credit and debit cards as a means of transacting electronically, but mobile payments will not pick up as quickly as some are predicting because the benefits have not yet been clearly communicated to them

James Ratcliff, Editor of Cards International, comments: “According to Eurosmart, telecoms smart device issuance is forecast to grow at a rate of 12.5 percent by the end of 2011, whereas cards will grow at more than double that rate 28.6 percent. However, the volume of smart devices issued is still far greater, android phones in particular have seen an 886 percent rise in sales in 2010. Showing that the technology is there but widespread adoption is still some way off.”

This was the consensus view at a roundtable meeting hosted by Cards International, the information service for the Cards and Payments industry, last month. While some industry figures said that 2011 will be the year mobile payments takes off, most experts around the table agreed it could be two years or more before the market really takes shape.

The roundtable meeting, which took place in Central London on 9^th June, was well attended with key players from the industry including representatives from mobile phone operator Three, credit card issuer Barclaycard, card network MasterCard, accounting firm KPMG, payments solutions companies Ingenico, eWise, and SIX Card Solutions, mobile ecommerce business Optima Europe, fashion retailer John Goodwin Ltd, payments giants UK Payments and Worldpay, and representatives from consulting companies Bluerock, Kilrush and Value Partners.

Director of Kilrush Consulting, Connie Penn summed the conversation up well by saying: “Mobile is the biggest thing since we first introduced PDQ terminals in 1987, and I look forward to being involved over the next few years as we start to see this new form factor mature.”

A full write up will be published in Cards International magazine this month.