The long-held promise of mobile payments - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Viewpoint careers advice blog

The long-held promise of mobile payments - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Making mobile payment technology massively appealing requires some key challenges to be overcome. Keys. Money. Mobile phone. It’s a mantra that many of us recite as we rush to leave our homes each morning. But wouldn’t it be nice if one gadget could fulfill all those roles? That’s where mobile payment technologies come in. Whether it is in consolidating your credit cards into one wallet-sized rectangle, or transforming your smartphone into a payment platform, if cash is king, it may soon be deposed. Gartner predicts that the mobile payment market will be worth $617 billion and have 448 million users by 2016. The numbers are certainly exciting, and with that many users, you can bet that businesses developing and running these technologies face a pretty serious demand for skills. So, why haven’t we seen a surge in hiring for mobile payments talent? The fact is, putting the technology into practice has been fraught with complications. Security remains a concern According to research carried out by pollsters YouGov, fewer than one in four UK consumers would use their smartphone like a credit card to make payments, even if they had the relevant app installed, with the majority voicing worries over security. One in five, meanwhile, said they wouldn’t use it because they don’t trust the battery on their smartphone to last while they are out shopping. While battery life is another issue altogether, the only way to counter issues of trust will be to ensure some big names join the mobile payments party. Recently, we have seen a few noteworthy pilot projects designed to test the market: at the London 2012 Olympics, for example, athletes and sponsors issued with a special edition Samsung Galaxy S III phone linked to their Visa accounts were able to pay for items worth up to £20 at retailers in and around Olympic venues Whilst an array of eye-catching start-ups, such as Clinkle   and Loop, which use existing technologies like near field communication or NFC, (which underpins contactless payments at points of sale) and magnetic card readers are attracting heavyweight funding, the manpower of such companies remains tiny. As with many emerging trends, for now it is difficult to predict which precise skills will be needed where. Universally appealing However with more and more heavyweight players entering the fray both in a peer-to-peer   and business-to-consumer context, we   expect the demand for talent to gradually grow. Barclays’ Pingit   is a free app, allowing users to conduct near-instant money transfers to accounts in the UK, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia, with more destinations to follow. All that is required is the recipient’s phone number, and not any of their banking details. While much of Pingit’s focus is between individuals, the service can apply to businesses. According to Mike Walters, Head of UK Corporate Payments at Barclays: “For businesses, it is becoming increasingly important to consider the use of mobile payments as part of their overall business strategy.” The UK Payments Council will implement a major mobile payments scheme in spring 2014, enabling many more banks to make payments in a similar way as Pingit. Eight financial institutions, representing 90 per cent of all UK current accounts, have already committed to offer it. Meanwhile, a service called Zapp, from payments specialist Vocalink, uses a customer’s mobile banking app to transfer funds to the retailer when they reach the checkout in either a physical or online store. Among the first stores to sign up to Zapp, due for launch in 2014, are WHSmith, Lidl, Superdrug and McDonald’s, with card-reader supplier WorldPay also a backer. And it’s not just banks and retailers â€" Vodafone is also getting in on the act, though with NFC-enabled SIM cards rather than as an app. Its service has already launched in Spain and Germany, with the Netherlands, UK and Italy to follow. Perhaps the heaviest contender of all though is Google Wallet, an app which can also function as a swipe-to-pay tool. For phones without NFC, the app’s central feature is when shopping online, where much like Amazon’s ‘1 Click’, a ‘Buy with Google’ button avoids filling in card details and address information â€" as long as a button is on their site first. While   teething problems will continue to be a barrier to the progress of mobile payment technology, with names like Google raising its profile, it won’t be long before we see real progress in the space, and the skills demand that will inevitably follow. Please join our IT Industry Insights Group on LinkedIn to engage with IT professionals and share your views on these and other developments in your sector.