FinTech Trends in 2016 — Mobile Commerce

A multitude of FinTech trends is slowly starting to shape form, and the year 2016 will be an important year for the industry. The only question remaining is which trends will becoming successful , and which will fail? Making predictions is fairly difficult in the FinTech sector, but there are some trends that will stand or fall by the end of 2016. Mobile commerce will be facing a tough year, that much is certain.

Mobile Commerce — The Story So Far

One of the more peculiar trends the FinTech world has seen is how consumers rely on mobile devices to do most of their shopping. Up until a few years ago, e-commerce started becoming a mainstream trend, allowing consumers from all over the world to pay for goods online and have them delivered to their home.

Even though e-commerce is still a big thing — and the numbers keep growing during special events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday — mobile commerce is chomping at the bit to take its place. To some people, purchasing goods and services on a mobile device might not make that much sense, but don’t knock an idea before trying it.

Mobile commerce is an interesting creature in this regard, as millions of consumers around the world have access to a smartphone or tablet. It only makes sense for retailers and brands to target this particular market, as there is very little competition in the mobile space so far. Just building a mobile web version of an e-commerce platform is not enough these days.

At the same time, e-commerce players are working on building applications to tackle the mobile commerce sector. Development of such applications takes valuable time and money though, as customer security is at the top of the priority list for all companies. Without proper security, consumer data is put at risk, which would lead to the downfall of mobile commerce for a lot of retailers.

Making a mobile commerce application stand out from competitor offerings will be a difficult task though. Plenty of e-commerce players will follow the route of providing exclusive discounts and deals when customers use the mobile application. Doing so puts an interesting spin on mobile commerce, as customers would be incentivized to check the application more often than they might check the e-commerce platform.

As far as payments go, the FinTech industry will be playing a major role in the development of mobile payment options. Entering credit card details on a mobile device is not the most pleasant experience, and trusting a third-party provider to safeguard financial details on behalf of consumers is not the best idea either.

How To Make Mobile Commerce A Mainstream Trend?

There is still a lot of work to be done in the FinTech industry before mobile commerce can be labelled as a mainstream trend. Even though 2015 could have been the breakthrough year for mobile commerce, very little happened over the past twelve months, other than the launch of new mobile payment solutions such as Apple Pay.

Being greeted with a lot of hype and excitement is not enough to make mobile payments take off all of a sudden. Consumers who own an iPhone 6 [or better] have access to Apple Pay at plenty of locations in the US and the UK, but they are not using it as often as they could. In fact, research indicated most consumers tend to forget Apple Pay is an available option.

Taking mobile commerce to a mainstream level will require more than just fancy payment methods available on smartphones and tablets. The entire user experience will have to be modified to create seamless integration of e-commerce, combined with secure and powerful payment methods that won’t require users to leave the mobile commerce ecosystem.

How will the future of mobile commerce look in your opinion? What will it take to make this a mainstream trend? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Finextra

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