Mobile Payments: Staking the Claim

Fiserv recently released a report that lists reasons that banks and credit unions are well poised to capture the growing mobile payments market. In the paper, titled "Beyond Mobile Banking: It's Time to Stake the Claim for Mobile Payments," Fiserv argues that these institutions are uniquely positioned to offer mobile payments since they hold consumer trust and have the experience and relationships in the industry. "Banks and credit unions don't have to wait on the sidelines as non-traditional players move into the mobile payments market," said Erich Litch, division president, Digital Channels, Fiserv. "There is currently a window of opportunity during which financial institutions can introduce consumers to mobile payments, starting with mobile bill payments and P2P payments, establishing themselves as providers of choice so they can retain the full range of mobile transactions as the space grows to include more payments at the point-of-sale."

But in many markets, mobile operators also have consumer trust, sometimes more than the traditional financial service providers. If the natural entry point for a provider is mobile bill payments and P2P payments then mobile operators have a distinct advantage over the financial service providers since they operate the communications infrastructure required to provide these services and have large potential user bases.

And then we have players like Google and Visa entering center stage. Google, a company with relatively little experience in financial services but a consumer brand name that virtually no bank could contend with. Visa, a company with tons of financial experience, a clear interest in the industry, but still struggling to make a clean market entry.

One thing is abundantly clear, consumer interest in this space is growing and competition is quickly heating up. Whoever wants to stake a claim ‒ they better do it quickly!