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Cell phone your new credit card?
AT&T and Verizon are reportedly hooking up with Discover Financial and Barclays to create a service on smartphones that would make the need for your credit and debit cards inconsequential. Granted this is hardly a new idea, and there are several apps, etc. out there now that are geared toward this idea of handling your expenses from your cell phone. But how safe would you feel using your cell to purchase items? Would you find it convenient? How would this affect your business/business deals?
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2 Answers
It seems that the cell phone as a payment/discount tool keeps trying to permeate the marketplace. I am certain that the future will see features such as this more prominent and I think it is something we will have to embrace. From my understanding, companies such as paypal have mobile payment already in place, but I would be curious of AT&T and Verizon's implementation. They would really need to convince customers of transaction security.
I would feel comfortable making this leap, as credit cards as they exist now are anything but foolproof. I would be concerned about the possibility of anyone picking up my phone being able to make payments, but maybe a PIN based transaction with a good encryption algorithm would do the trick. I don't see it much different from when I use the ATM.
I think this will be a huge impact on business, not only creating business opportunities for employment of these services, but also convenience to (hopefully fast) transactions.
Lauren: Cell phone as a credit card concept was around for some time. In my opinion, it is not going to get traction for a long time. Americans especially like to hold on to their existing habits and they are not going to give up on physical credit card anytime soon.
Exceptions may be in the area of bus/transit fares where convenience is most important.
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