In order to understand the evolution and demand pattern of mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) acceptance methods across industries, the leader in mobility and mobile financial solutions Mahindra Comviva and a research agency Aite Group has conducted a study, revealing that the cards will account for 273 billion transactions at a combined value of nearly US$30 trillion by 2018.
Payment modes like NFC-enabled mobile devices will flourish along with mPOS, bringing flexibility to payment acceptance. This would be a powerful aspect of the next generation mobile payments, says the study. From 2015-2018, the contactless mobile transactions have the potential to reach 4-5 percent of retail payments with growth in transaction volume accelerating after 2020. The mPOS hardware sales would also grow up. In 2014, the mPOS hardware sales was amounted to around 10 million devices.
Srinivas Nidugondi, Senior VP and Head of Mobile Financial Solutions at Mahindra Comviva sees this as an opportunity for the merchants to modernize their businesses. “In a fast-evolving digital economy, mobility is a critical business enabler. mPOS helps merchants to modernize their business by offering speed of deployment and flexibility to deliver tailored solutions that can transform their relationship with their end customers. We are confident that mPOS will lead to the advancement of payment solutions and would pave the way for mobile payments growth across industries in the years to come.”
Mobile point-of-sales will allow businesses to engage the customers in novel ways previously not available to them. Besides, the payment methods, mPOS has the potential to show the customers demonstration of products, information on offers, permit deliveries to be scheduled, and enable filling of application forms. The growth of mPOS naturally will pave way to the surge of application software. Systems can be customized by means of associated software applications designed and downloaded to specific market segments and geographies.
Andrew Copeman, a payments analyst at Aite Group, commented, “The world of payments is at the start of a process of change more fundamental than ever before. New business models and partnerships with more flexible solutions having payment acceptance at their heart are the order of the day, but the key ingredient that weaves through the rapidly evolving landscape is mobility; the ability to accept payments at the customer’s convenience and at a greater variety of locations than ever before. mPOS is moving from a niche service into the mainstream of modern commerce.”
Added to it, the evolution of mPOS hardware, payments acceptance is changing from the traditional card-based environment to cloud-based services. Next-generation POS services will be increasingly cloud-enabled, easing the transition from card-initiated to smartphone-initiated payments.
Readers can access full study here - The Evolution of mPOS: The Payments Industry in Flux.
