Is my SmartPhone NFC enabled?

Two interesting pieces of news from NFCWorld.com Vodafone to launch NFC mobile wallet across Europe Mobile network operator Vodafone‘s NFC mobile wallet is going live today in Spain, will be available in Germany in mid-December and expand to the Netherlands, UK and Italy in spring 2014. Vodafone Wallet works with a range of NFC phones as […]

Google’s move will impact Secure Element makers

Google, a mobile platform maker (of Android), starts to de-emphasize carrier-based NFC. As per IDC’s report (Aug 2013), Android accounts for 79% of the Smartphone shipments as on 2Q2013. iOS (through iPhones) accounts for another 13% of the Smartphone shipments. If Google manages to establish the Host-Card-Emulation standard as an alternative to the secure-element(SE) based NFC transactions, […]

PayPal Beacon … transforming mobile payments?

“PayPal has unveiled the launch of PayPal Beacon, a plug-in device for merchants that is set to enable consumers to make hands-free payments in a number of stores. PayPal Beacon is set to leverage Bluetooth Low Energy, a technology that enables connected devices to communicate with each other, while keeping the energy consumption at a low […]

“Revenge of the nerds” via The Economist

‘Revenge of the nerds‘, the article from The Economist delves in an interesting question. While financial technology firms will upset the apple-cart for bank & financial institutions, how far can this wave go? Developed economies are witnessing increasing application areas with the proliferation of smart phones, cloud based services and mobile banking platforms. How will incumbents create levers […]

mPOS: Addressing new customer segments! A case of blue-ocean strategy!

In an attempt to better understand and apply the blue-ocean strategy, I decided to test the framework on a rapidly evolving market – the payment’s industry. The solutions in the payments industry can be broadly classified into categories: those addressing emerging economies and those addressing developed economies. It naturally follows that the value propositions of the payments […]