Is messaging a key driver of mobile payments, and why?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot12/Feb/20161 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 12/Feb/2016
Messaging is indeed a huge driver for payments.
Everything we do in the digital world, is actually nothing more than the digital representation of behavior of the physical (analog) world.
When we meet someone, we usually exchange greetings, and break into a chat. The is what we do in real-life and what we do in the virtual world.
Communicate.
From such communication, we segment groups, friends, family, colleagues, associates, professional contacts, work, fun, suppliers, vendors, etc.
The next logical step in communication, is commerce. We then start interacting on an economic basis with them. With close friends and family, it might be spotting a few Dollars, etc. With others, it might be commercial payments (like paying rent, or mortgage, etc.)
Most of these payment systems in real-life are simply connected by your wallet and the association of your bank (for example, you usually pay a check for rent, or mortgage).
The online eco-system is no different. Eventually, the people you and I communicate most with, would most likely be the people you and I would like to transact with. It makes super-sense that the people I communicate with, to whom I can transfer information digitally, should also be the same people to whom I should be able to transfer value (i.e. money) digitally.
When you own the messaging platform that has payments enabled in it, it sort of becomes the de facto method of choice to communicate. Everyone nowadays has access to WhatsApp or Email or SMS, but if you had to go out of the way, to download an app, just to communicate with this one friend? Would you?
However, if that same friend is on WhatsApp, etc. communication becomes much more simpler (read: convenient).
Implement payments into the same scenario and you can see how you would be able to send money to anyone on your contact's list, seamlessly, without effort in hopefully a frictionless manner.
So, definitely, owning the communication/messaging space is a prerequisite of sorts to owning the mobile payments space.
Everything we do in the digital world, is actually nothing more than the digital representation of behavior of the physical (analog) world.
When we meet someone, we usually exchange greetings, and break into a chat. The is what we do in real-life and what we do in the virtual world.
Communicate.
From such communication, we segment groups, friends, family, colleagues, associates, professional contacts, work, fun, suppliers, vendors, etc.
The next logical step in communication, is commerce. We then start interacting on an economic basis with them. With close friends and family, it might be spotting a few Dollars, etc. With others, it might be commercial payments (like paying rent, or mortgage, etc.)
Most of these payment systems in real-life are simply connected by your wallet and the association of your bank (for example, you usually pay a check for rent, or mortgage).
The online eco-system is no different. Eventually, the people you and I communicate most with, would most likely be the people you and I would like to transact with. It makes super-sense that the people I communicate with, to whom I can transfer information digitally, should also be the same people to whom I should be able to transfer value (i.e. money) digitally.
When you own the messaging platform that has payments enabled in it, it sort of becomes the de facto method of choice to communicate. Everyone nowadays has access to WhatsApp or Email or SMS, but if you had to go out of the way, to download an app, just to communicate with this one friend? Would you?
However, if that same friend is on WhatsApp, etc. communication becomes much more simpler (read: convenient).
Implement payments into the same scenario and you can see how you would be able to send money to anyone on your contact's list, seamlessly, without effort in hopefully a frictionless manner.
So, definitely, owning the communication/messaging space is a prerequisite of sorts to owning the mobile payments space.