“Futurists and currency buffs have been predicting for years that some digital gadget or other would kill off cash, credit cards, and checkbooks. That process is already far along outside the U.S.,” Felix Gillette reports for Businessweek. “But after years of consumer indifference, mobile payments are about to make the leap in the U.S. from foreign-sounding novelty to inescapable fact of daily life. In a study in 2013, Forrester Research estimated that the amount of money spent by Americans via mobile payments will reach $90 billion in 2017, compared with $12.8 billion two years ago. Over the next several years, ‘mobile payments will move toward the mainstream,’ Forrester analysts wrote.”
“Whichever companies lure the most consumers and merchants onto their product stand to reap billions of dollars in transaction fees while also accumulating deep treasure-troves of valuable data about purchase habits,” Gillette reports. “In October, Apple jumped into the arena, rolling out Apple Pay, a system that allows people to make store purchases with a fingertip reader on their iPhones. Facebook is expected to join the fray as well. On Nov. 17, Snapchat introduced a tool called Snapcash that allows users to send each other money through the popular ephemeral messaging app.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Castlebuono” for the heads up.]