Community

I think Pingit evolved.  I registered - was not a Barclays customer before but I guess I am now.  I can pay a person by phone number (they get a text and have to join to get it!).  Or a participating business, or scan a code, or enter a registered short-code.  So the options have extended but still not had cause/opportunity to actually use it.

So many visualisations in this funny story :))  And a lot of truisms.  But there are obviously huge variations across the masses - how else would stuff that I think is bonkers be the 'next big thing' seemingly overnight.  There really is room for all manners of paying for stuff - hence the plethora of standards.  Everyone wants everything to work everywhere (ubiquity, like SMS), but it boils down to what is easy and what you are comfortable using (I mean if I could pay my parking with a Dunkin' Donut card, I probably would!  Maybe there's an idea) 

Finally a good implementation of location in a payments service.  And identification backed via old fashioned face recognition.  Just like when you walk into a local store where they know you.  Truly hands-free like when the storekeeper(or landlord) just put it on a tab and you settled later in the month.

I wonder what the transaction limit is for these transactions?  $25.  After that a PIN challenge can be added to the flow for non-repudiation and lower debt risk.

Just to reinforce you are commenting on 'cashless' not 'contactless' to avoid any assumptions this was about NFC or mobile.

I left home yesterday and realised 10 mintues away I had left my (real) wallet.  I considered for a short time if I could make it through the day with a handful of coins and my mobile (various P2P payment apps, bank apps, registered for phone parking etc).  But no. The killer was knowing that I would need a real credit/debit card to pay the huge parking fee in London, so back I went ;)

Just got to reading this - love the analogy

Most of these Olympic venues have no re-entry policy, so the audience is well and truly captive!  At £5 a sandwich and about the same for a drink, your need about £40 cash to do a single feed of a family and probably do it twice.  At least the water was free, but huge queues for that too. But hey - it was still great to go.

"The first priority remains the introduction of pay at the checkout with the mobile phone,"

So that means back to the partnering with the card issuers and using the existing transaction capture/processing rails, putting an Operator branding on the service and maybe adding an Operator Wallet.  Its very hard to improve on the cost dynamics that the incuments enjoy.  iZettle and Square are truly disruptive attempts to do it.  Banks do a good job at protecting their business (for which they have a government issued license) and Operators remain cautious about competing directly with that, since they are also trading partners, let alone the risk management commitment they could get into. 

But micro-billing, under the 20Euro level of transaction, is perfect to add to the Operator Bill rather than from a Credit Card.  Both sources need to be replenished from a bank account (or could be PrePaid), and is good for the un(der)banked consumer.

So - expect a lot of Mobile Operator Wallets to enter and compete with Google, PayPal Mobile, Amex, PingIt etc etc, and for those other wallets to be topped up by Carrier Bill as an option to Credit/Bank.

Alternatively, consumers change because the old ways are obsoleted (e.g paying with card not cash at a payphone, using Chip&Pin not magstipe at a POS --- paying with NFC tap&go and m-wallets will come whether you like it or not, but will admittedly take a while)

Well, I'd give the Barclays support guy 9/10 for persistence in keeping me going when I was about ready to drop the idea altogether, so I think they want the customers.

All alternate currency, stored value or loyalty points system have to 'cash-out' at some point - creating exchange rates.  If this village keep manufacturing more and more 'currency' (like Quantativie Easing) then the currency become less valued and the exchange rates suffer.  Another problem is faked currency (counterfeit) which brings me to the point which is that in a way, 'digital' currency can be more secure, better tracked and harder or impossible to fake (except by those that have the keys to the printing press).  All digital money could be signed with a seal of authenticity and thereby tracked forever.

Maybe then we would see where all this recent virtual money really went. (i.e all the real money went out of the banking system to those that could take it, leaving a bubble of nothingness that we, the public, will be filling for years to come)