Making a Case for Mobile Payment

Mobile payment can transform your shopping experience, making it more convenient and easy—and it’s secure, too!

Forbes reports, “Shopping has become very impersonal. Few people have a relationship with a salesperson who knows their style and preferences and can direct them to the right items at the right prices as soon as they walk in the door. But wouldn’t that be nice? Preferable, certainly, to wandering cavernous stores, fending off pushy salespeople who don’t even bother to learn our names, much less our favorite colors and fabrics.”

Mobile payment will mean much more one-to-one marketing—meaning specific deals and promos could be specially targeted to individual consumers based on their buying habits. Sooner rather than later, based on the information on a mobile phone app that consumers carry while shopping, they will be “recognized” as being in the store and recommendations, discounts, coupons—all in the form of specific customized offers—will pop up.

And mobile is secure, too. There are various mobile payment delivery options. Near field communication is a contactless delivery system that involves a chip that is either built into the phone itself, into a card within the phone, or a sticker attached to the phone. There are also new applications that facilitate mobile payments, most of which involve a barcode that the user scans at a store register.

As you increasingly use your phone for mobile payments, be aware that the phone correspondingly increases in value to thieves and hackers. So keep track of your cell phone. You wouldn’t leave your wallet on a bar and walk away, and you shouldn’t do that with your phone, either. And be cautious when visiting websites on your phone’s browser, clicking on links or responding to text messages.

So how do I conduct safe mobile payments?

• Pay attention to your credit card statements to check that you are paying for what you actually purchased.
• Only download mobile payment applications from a reputable app store. Check user reviews of the app and make sure to read the app’s privacy policy regarding what data of yours it is accessing and sharing.
• Don’t conduct any mobile transactions over an unsecured WiFi connection. It’s much more secure to use your mobile data network.
• Keep your mobile software current. This includes installing the latest updates for your operating system, mobile browser and mobile security software.