Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mobile Payment - the electronic wallet

The next generation of barter sytem is here. From exchanging rice for beans, we have come a long way. Paper money improved from the bulky coins. Credit and debit cards made the dream of a e-wallet come true.
With the coming of internet banking and wide spread use of Mobiles, it was only a question of time before Mobile banking solutions started blooming.

Lets compare few of the major providers of Mobile payment solutions. Oxicash is making progress with its product. The concept is that of a prepaid card that can be used to make purchases. This is different from Obopay which allows you to link your mobile to your bank or credit card acount. While Obopay promises to be a money transfer solution, the features offered by ngpay are that of a mobile mall.

The companies are drawing in more and more merchant partners who support the mobile payment model. The model being used by oxycash, ngpay or mcheck is not much different in that all are offering the options to make payments through SMS, through the browser or through a customised application.

Although each of these methods has its own pros and cons as well as its own set of users. Any of these providers should provide features like:
  1. Flexibility in the methods of recharging or adding cash to the e-wallet.(It should be as easy as getting your mobile phone recharged)
  2. The e-wallet should not b restricted to a select set of merchnats alone.Pay to any mobile option should be available.

The future seems bright for mcommerce, the challenge is in presenting the idea to the user in the best way.