The Future of Payments

The Future of Payments

Prepaid cards, contactless and mobile payments

As we move towards the so-called 'cashless' society, and consumers increasingly want the ability to make payments online and on their mobile phones - safe in the knowledge that transactions are secure - the face of the payments landscape is changing. Card payments have increasingly become an important part of our everyday lives, especially as more and more people utilize the Internet and financial institutions offer various payment services that preclude writing checks or using cash. From a business standpoint and despite growing transaction volumes, financial institutions are facing margin pressures on their payments businesses as competition has grown. From a technology standpoint, there has been little change in the past two decades. However, there are indications that suggest the next few years will yield interesting. This report considers the current market for payments technologies and provides an analysis of how the sector could evolve.

The Future of Payments: Prepaid cards, contactless and mobile payments is a new report published by Business Insights that examines the current market for a range of existing payment technologies and processes, and how this will drive the future of payments. This report predicts how payments trends will change in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific as well as examining potential marketing strategies. It also considers the drivers and risks for each key technology including mPayments, contactless payments, and co-branded and prepaid card schemes.

Some key findings from this report...

• The European retail banking market will become increasingly consolidated and the product market increasingly open, beyond the 2010 SEPA deadline.
• The advantages of prepaid cards versus other payment cards allow for them to be used for all transactions, in spite of being mainly suited to small value transactions.
• Speed drives the contactless payment proposition. Contactless payments are considerably faster than standard card transactions, and offering significant benefits to certain types of merchant.
• Marketing aimed at teenagers should be subtle and empathetic. There is an additional appeal from brands including Visa and MasterCard that are regarded as 'adult'.
• Only the most optimistic forecasts have suggested that the value of global mPayment transactions will reach N50 billion by 2009. However, there are a large number of potential applications for mPayments, ranging from payments for digital content through to P2P transactions.

Key questions answered by this report...

• How will the Internet change the face of the payments landscape in the next few years?
• Where are the biggest opportunities for co-branded cards?
• How can banks, merchants and card issuer's best appeal to the youth market?
• What is the expected potential for the mPayments industry?
• How will SEPA affect the evolution of the payments industry in Europe?
• What are the risks involved in contactless payments?

This new report will provide you with...

• Analysis of the current market conditions for payments, and how these will impact their evolution in coming years.
• An examination of the likely success of mPayments, and the drivers and inhibitors on the market.
• Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of co-branded cards, and their future growth potential.
• Key success factors for contactless payments and an assessment of their future potential.
• An understanding of prepaid cards key benefits and why these will drive success in the Asia-Pacific region.