On April 14th, MPD CEO Karen Webster kicked off an engaging digital discussion on the future of mobile payments with Srinivas Nidugondi, SVP at Mahindra Comviva, in the following way …
“Mobile payments and its future success is like a riddle wrapped up in an enigma surrounded by mystery. It’s something the payments ecosystem has been pursuing for over a decade – but ignition, wide scale adoption, has been largely elusive. Of course, within the realm of mobile payments, the industry has seen pockets of success in both developed and developing economies as consumers are increasingly presented with new ways to use their mobile devices.”
And away they went.
So what, Webster asked, is happening now to create the environment for mobile payments success?Are the stars aligning now that new players with new capabilities and existing players with new value propositions have entered the mobile payments arena, she asked? Or will this be the payments equivalent of Groundhog Day, where the excitement and enthusiasm gives way to old habits and entrenched technologies and we continue to plod along?
Srinivas Nidugondi, SVP at Mahindra Comviva, then jumped into the discussion to explain that there is movement forward – for example, 22 percent of the U.S. population has done some sort of mobile payment over the last year or so. But what is key is to look at what’s working in those specific pockets of success that Webster mentioned. For one, in emerging markets, mobile payments has become the only way digital payments can move forward. But when it comes to proximity-based, over-the-counter payments, Nidugondi admitted that the ecosystem is “far from even scratching the surface.”
