There’s one thing you can be sure of experiencing when you embrace digital technology: innovation.
And when it comes to cellular phone knowhow, the thrust for newer, smarter upgrades become a continuous priority, no matter which service provider network you are connected with.
Take payments as a feature enjoyed by the mobile phone segment.
As networks expand their footprints over a larger global space, their innovative research also keeps pace – to satisfy different consumer needs, diverse population parameters.
According to the corporate Chief of a top international credit card network, the goal of today’s mobile payment networks is to create a ‘seamless, frictionless’ consumer experience even while billions of transactions take place worldwide.
The industry leader also noted that what he forecast as the coming of technology in this digital arena, way back in 2010, appears to have been surpassed in terms of speed of innovation!
However, there still remains a long way to go, he observed, as the consumer of the future will demand smarter means and choices to make such transactions easier. In fact, that discerning individual has already arrived.
As for the credit card company he represents, he said that their objective is to develop a customer relationship that will cement long term loyalties and confidence while making the experience of dealing with the financial institutions more comfortable.
‘Stakeholders in the relationships between consumers, wallets and FIs can include merchants and even government agencies’, he added.
Among a ‘multitude of products’ that will be consumer-oriented and be innovation-driven to enhance the order-by-card experience, additional services such as QR Codes, Qkr and similar Order-Ahead Services would become more streamlined and integrated to the system for rapid-fire responses between merchants, banks and the user.
Going by the way digital technology and online payment facilities have developed over the decade, borderless transactions offer a host of innovative features, with security features, covering a huge number of points of sale.
Digitization continues to propel the growth of the consumer population adapting to this change. Mastercard projects a growth of new users at 500 million by 2020. A major share of this target is already functional, thanks to support of governments, financial institutions and other entities.
In India, bold steps towards achieving a 100% cashless society, using such user-friendly channels of mobile transactions and card -based payment systems have already been taken.
Technologies that will survive the future in this consumer preference-related arena will be those that will relate themselves to people’s needs on a broad scale.
Scaling is the biggest issue, when it comes to innovation. And, the fittest will survive.
