Lack of Interoperability is Preventing Mobile Payment Adoption

By:  Jason Way, Vice President GEOBRIDGE Corporation

While each new Mobile Payment announcement is interesting, the unique qualities of each one is the very reason mobile payments have not yet been widely adopted by users and merchants alike.

Merchants cannot afford to support multiple options.  Users will not employ multiple options. Effectively, the concept, which is preventing mobile payment adoption, is the lack of interoperability.

Major players appear to have recognized this dilemma, yet they all possess an understandable tunnel vision for maintaining enough uniqueness to maintain their own profitability.  Near Field Communications have emerged as the Holy Grail meant anchor interoperability between merchants and users.  While NFC capabilities are becoming more readily available at the point of sale the number of users and phones, in existence, significantly outnumber the total sum of merchants.

At best, users will (years from now) have a mechanism to store multiple NFC sources on any number of different phones.  At worst, the majority of users will resist the challenges of managing multiple applications and NFC sources causing Mobile Payments to remain an unachieved utopia.

The application of NFC to deliver mobile payment capability is technically sound.  However, the only realistic hope is that a NFC Mobile Payment solution will be a short-lived novelty that will cause a temporary revenue spike.  If we’re depending on NFC, the sheer number of users, phones, and merchants will prevent interoperability and frustrate users attempting to leverage a mobile payment option.