The next three years will be remembered for the Digital Wallet mainly because of the transformation of our ordinary wallets/purses where we keep money, credit cards and documents.
But why? Why is this market so important? The introduction of the Digital Wallet as well as changing the business model of leaders such as MasterCard, Visa, American Express, will open its doors to the mobile payment services and banks such as Citi, Chase, online payment systems like PayPal, Amazon, Apple and Google as well as to all those big commercial realities, especially in the Big Retail industry.
The operation of the Digital Wallet is secured by a simple technology called NFC (Near Field Communication). A proximity sensor with a unique identifier, can identify a specific terminal (smartphone) and consequently interact with payment systems of the seller via a preinstalled app.
Thus, in a short time we will stop going out with the phone in one hand and the wallet in the other, because the two will soon converge.
Smartphones would have our credit cards we would use to decide what to pay and how, we would send and receive money from friends and family, we would manage manage our identity cards and shopping coupons, collected points, rewards programs and simultaneously analyze and control costs in real time to know whether we have reached our monthly budget limits.
The advantages of having a Digital Wallet are numerous, but the key point is that the consumer will have everything on their smartphone.
It will be so much easier to pay on the premises, enter the subway, shop, split the bill for the pizza with all those present…
You’ll also find it easy to share with friends what to do, where to go and what to buy because the digital wallet also includes another important feature: auto-tracking.
With the quick spread of devices equipped with NFC and the use of D-Wallet, what platform like Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Offers, Yelp and Facebook place do today (sharing locations, learning the most frequented places, giving opinions and ratings of restaurants, etc.) will be done automatically through our Digital Wallet.
In the pizzeria, the merchant will send the request for payment directly to your device and with one click you can easily split the bill with vs without friends.
But if these benefits are too much even for a “smartphone addict”, in reality this new scenario will involve much more than the “Mrs. Mary” because when it comes to money and saving, it is best to learn all at once.
The Mrs. Mary will go shopping and will not only optimize money spending and have the convenience of not carrying cash, but will also maximize savings and use all coupons and rewards program that a brand of has to offer. This is because by tracking those who buy, what they buy, where they buy and how often and how much they spend, the large distributors would pay gold for this information via reward programs or discounts.
The supermarket chains have insights of the real-time market, maximizing the most of their stores, supplies and market analysis. It will be easier, because the Brand – Consumers relationship will become 1 to 1, they would be able to communicate directly without the direct marketing agents (Radio, TV or Web).
The Big Race
Why is it called the War of the Digital Wallet? Because the stakes are high, the highest of all recent digital business.
I speak not only for the % on transactions that have always been dominated by banks and credit card companies, but about the data and tracking of people that will be done far away from the payments business.
That’s why they also give credible rumors about Apple that it is in competition with the integration of its own iOS a NFC Digital Wallet. In reality, as soon as network carriers, banks, large multi-utility and retail brands realize the importance of the Digital Wallet and they study of consumer behavior, it will change radically our ways of marketing once and for all.
Welcome to the real Web 3.0 i.e. a place where digital and physical interactions become one.
Published June 26, 2011
Category: Business Model, Most Popular
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