Why your smartphone is replacing cash and card payments
Individuals can’t process credit card payments as businesses do, and nobody wants to navigate their way through a bank transfer every time they owe their friends a small amount of money. It’s no wonder that cash can sometimes seem like the best option for personal payments.
If we are to move towards a cashless society, electronic person-to-person payments must be convenient and instant. Mobile provides a ready-made platform for this — 70 per cent of UK consumers already own a smartphone.
Instant message, instant payment
Think of a typical night out. You’re splitting the bill at a restaurant. Inevitably, half the party will have only large notes or their credit card. Everyone has to fumble for change. The unfortunate person organising the payment ends up with too much or too little cash.
What if you could take out your phone and send a payment in the form of an instant message? No need to worry about account or credit card numbers — you would simply find the payee in your phone book or type in their mobile number. The correct amount would be transferred immediately.
Getting a taxi home? This generally involves guessing the fare in advance and often ends with one person bearing the brunt of the cost. How much easier would it be if you could send a mobile payment request to the group at the end of the journey and if each member of the group could reply and pay in one step?
Group payments
Mobile payments aren’t just a potential substitute for cash — they’re also perfect for situations where you might have previously used bank transfer or even cheque. Just say you’re booking a holiday for a group. You need to be paid for the tickets but would you feel secure giving out your bank details? You could wait for everyone to pay you by cash or cheque. Or you could send a group payment request via your mobile and allow them to reply with payment.
Manage your money better
It’s the end of the month and you’re trying to figure out where you spent all your money! It’s easy to lose track of personal payments when you’re using cash — there’s no electronic record and generally no receipts. Mobile payments can make money management easier by giving you a record of who you’ve paid and how much you’ve paid. At Fire Financial Services, we know that it can really be this easy.
So change the way you think about payments: download our Pay with Fire app and start making and receiving mobile payments for free.
Originally published at www.paywithfire.com on November 14, 2014.
