Analysis: Four forms of mobile payment

Carrier billing with the popularity of smartphones, big businesses are also targeting mobile payments. Mobile payment actually covers a range of products and mechanisms, and the entire value chain involves the interests of mobile operators, service providers, equipment manufacturers, major businesses, end users, etc. What are the current forms of mobile payment and what are the advantages and disadvantages of different payment patterns? On these issues, a dedicated team of Business Insider released a report, which we sorted as follows. First, we define mobile payment as a system that allows users to buy goods or services directly through mobile devices, or to implement currency exchange systems, using a variety of technologies that are specific to mobile devices. At present, there are four main forms of mobile payment: Carrier Billing NFC (Near-field communication) payment card payment (such as square card reader) application payment operator billing operator billing mode, refers to the entire payment process by operators. This mode of mobile payment works as follows: Users authorize a payment behavior (usually via SMS). Mobile operators that provide services to users help users process the entire payment process and take a portion of their profits. Payment will be included directly in the phone bill. For example, when a charity, or a TV advertiser, lets you reply to a particular number with a text message, it is an operator billing mobile payment. The advantage of this method of payment is that it is very convenient for consumers. They can complete the transaction by simply sending a message. Another advantage of this method of payment is that the media threshold for such payment is low. For those who do not have a bank card or credit card account, they can also enjoy the service. This type of payment, in addition to developing countries, also has people in developed countries, such as teenagers who usually don't have bank cards or credit cards. Disadvantages However, carrier billing also has two drawbacks: operators usually take the bulk of profits, sometimes up to 15% to 50%. There is a historical reason for this: Before the advent of the iphone, it was the operators who controlled the relationship with end users, so they could price them arrogantly. Because operators control the entire value chain, and the collection of Commission is usually very high, resulting in the scope of the payment method is limited. But for that reason, there is another reason: operator billing depends on how the business talks between the big companies and the operators. At present, there is no particularly good API that allows a company to easily make a deal with its customers through operator billing. For a company to reach a large enough audience and provide this type of payment means that they need to talk to the operators and their partners about their plans, which cost a lot. Zong But some companies are bypassing this approach, finding their own solutions, most notably the mobile payment provider Zong. Their approach is to directly with a number of operators around the world to reachCooperation。 In this way, many Web sites can bypass operators, directly through the Zong services to achieve carrier billing payment. The Zong operation is as follows: Only two steps are required when a user needs to complete a payment. First, locate and click the Zong button in the screen and enter the phone number in the pop-up Payment dialog box. Second, the user's mobile phone will receive a PIN code, the user only need to enter this identification code, you can complete the payment. It can be said that Zong successfully created their own carrier billing domain PayPal, and they also last year at 240 million U.S. dollars in the price was bought by PayPal. Currently, Zong's payment program supports a variety of online social games and collects commissions from a variety of small virtual commodity transactions. Many social game players are teenagers who don't have credit cards, so they can only choose to pay by phone. At present, mobile operators will still take a large part of the profits. However, according to the industry, because the carrier billing method is very convenient, the process is simpler, so it is higher than the conversion rate of credit card payment, and sometimes even can offset the higher transaction costs caused by losses. Therefore, operator billing is very suitable for small impulsive consumption. In this case, any simplification of the operation process can result in higher transaction volume and conversion rate. At the end of the day, we predict that operators will have a big market in the future for a long time, and will become an important part of mobile payments, but there is no chance of explosive growth or a future of mobile payments. With the maturity and power of other mobile payment schemes, this form of payment is likely to fade into the market later.