Money was the known legal tender for centuries, taking many forms and denominations but for the longest time, the accepted representation of value that can equal a product or service is the good old piece of paper with the picture of Benjamin on it.
And then came the plastic card with the owner’s name and signature on it, taking over money as the most popular legal tender but still representing the value based on the accepted legal tender which is money. Since then, credit cards and debit cards are the most popular and most used medium for payment and these cards have stocked up monetary values on them, for credit cards post paid and for debit cards prepaid, but still these cards gave the purchasing ability to its bearer without pulling out a single coin from his or her wallet.
But currently, there is a new payment method that is catching fire all over Asia and Europe and it is called mobile payment. Mobile payments and transactions are slowly taking over credit card and cash purchase payments in these continents because of the convenience and speed it provides to consummate a sale. Instead of paying using cash, check, or credit cards, a buyer is now enabled to pay using a mobile phone and he or she can use this technology to pick and pay for a wide variety of goods and services like music, videos, ringtones, online game subscription, wallpapers, and a lot of other digital goods.
You can also make mobile payments and transactions for items such as transportation fares that include most of the major ways to travel by land such as trains, buses, and the subway, and even use your mobile phone to pay for parking tickets. There are now establishments that allow mobile payments and transactions for books, magazines, tickets, and other hard goods.
You should be aware that there are four major types of mobile payments and these are contactless NFC (near field communication), mobile web payments, direct mobile billing, and the premium SMS-based transactional payments.
It is predicted based on the latest trends that mobile payment will reach more than six hundred billion globally two years from now while mobile payment for goods and services which includes contactless NFC transactions and money transfers will reach more than three hundred billion worldwide on the same year. Currently, some developing countries are catching up with mobile payments being adopted on micropayments.