New Payment Systems Galore
Now, what is it with all these payment systems? They tend to emerge in groups. And fail in groups. It seems we’re currently in a new wave of releases.
Nokia is transforming itself into a bank (or, rather, their operator friends). The appstores of this world is trying to position themselves as the micropayment par preferance. Squareup.com has introduced a card reader that can transform your iPhone to a payment terminal (and to an ideal skimming device). And serial entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal has landed $10 million in first round financing for gWallet, which is – yes you guessed it – a new digital/virtual currency that also will work on your cell phone.
I guess PayPal and Digital River are sitting idle, rolling their thumbs (not).
The funny thing is of course that none of this development – or at least significantly less of it – would have happened if telcos had behaved well with their premium SMS solutions, charging the normal 2-4% transaction fees plus traffic.
But, hey, why shouldn’t they open up for competition in this field as well? I mean, they effectively gave away their long distance market to Skype. Search services run circles around their once so proprietary data. And now, them celebrated payment systems, based in bunkers filled with Big Iron from IBM, DEC and Unisys, is up for graps.
Unless they change, re-negotiate their international agreements and start focusing on what they can deliver, given the horrendous margins in text messaging.
But, then again, why would they? So, perhaps this new wave of payment solutions are here to stay and indicate a brave new world of micropayments and digital transactions distributed to everywhere. That will change how we perceive and do business.
Maybe I even one day will be able to use a micro payment system to buy a telco.