Apps are changing the way we pay for products and services.
Mobile technology and applications by companies ranging from large international organizations to headstrong startups are running full tilt in the race to be the top choices for consumers to purchase products from websites, transfer funds, pay bills, manage investments and even shop at brick-and-mortar stores, without a second thought to actual physical cash.
According to Marc Rochman, whose startup, Openbucks, allows smartphone owners to use gift cards to pay for purchases online, “We are changing the way people think about money.” He added that “You can’t squeeze a $20 bill through your smartphone screen, so we digitize it for you.”
Mobile payments have already become a tremendous business and it is on the cusp of exploding.
Many, including a Juniper Research study, believe that by this time in 2013, the combined global market for all of the different forms of mobile payments may have already broken the $600 billion mark. This would mean that it had reached a size that was twice as big as it had been at this time in 2010.
Rochman, an entrepreneur originally from France, launched the most recent mobile technology from Openbucks in San Francisco, at the Future of Money & Technology Summit. His company is based in Mountain View – though it began in northern France, in Lille – and has been in operation for two years.
Rochman’s service is designed for individuals who either do not have credit cards or who would rather boost their privacy and security by limiting the use of their credit cards over the internet. It involves the purchase of an Openbucks gift card from any of the over 50,000 stores that sell them in the United States and Canada, so that money can be spent at any of thousands of different websites online, regardless of whether or not a credit card is owned.
Many other companies were also there, sharing their latest products. Each had their own vision of how mobile payments can work, and how consumers can bring together their favorite devices such as smartphones and tablets in order to make purchases at online and brick and mortar stores.
