Will the phone be your next credit card?

The phone is your next credit card.

For today's people, in fact, each of us has a "super credit card" from the future, where we are talking about smartphones.

For years, people have been using their smartphones to pay and buy goods, while this payment method has been accepted by more and more people, the mobile payment sector has not yet welcomed its real spring as a whole, as physical credit cards and cash remain the most popular form of payment. But fortunately, from a series of recent events, mobile payments may be expected to usher in a huge development in the short term.

First, the US mobile payment company, Square, recently completed a new round of funding of $150 million trillion, which made the company's valuations reach $6 billion trillion. It is reported that the Singapore government investment Company to the Square for the round of financing, and has been invested in square Goldman Sachs Group and Rizvi Traverse Management are also involved in the round of financing.

Second, the well-known electric business platform ebay announced this week will be stripped of its fast-growing payment business in 2015 PayPal, two companies will operate independently. The reason behind ebay's move, analysts say, is that it wants PayPal to get rid of its parent company and further enhance its influence in mobile payments.

Third, Facebook is currently testing the mobile payment function in its Messenger client, according to the latest U.S. technology media reports. From the analysis of the code content that the hacker has cracked, the mobile payment function in the Facebook Messenger is similar to the cash tool in another mobile payment tool square, which enables users to use their card to complete payment operations in Messenger.

Finally, Apple said in a press conference last month that the company's new mobile payment service, Apple Pay, will be launched this month. The launch of the service will allow the iphone 6 and iphone 6 Plus users to complete the payment process by simply using the handset's fingerprint identification system and proximity to the merchant's sensors. So far, including Bloomingdale department stores (Bloomingdale's), the United States famous retail Group Macy's (Macy ' s), McDonald's and the U.S. retail giant Whole Foods (Whole Foods harsh) have become the signing of the service partners.

"About 70% of American adults now have smartphones, about 20% of them," said Mary Monahan, senior vice president and Mobile research director of Javelin Strategy & Research, a market research firm Javelin. Have used mobile payment services in the past 90 days, and more than 50% of smartphone users have used mobile payment services to buy physical goods. ”

The trend is already clear, Monaghan, that as more applications and smartphone devices emerge, people will begin to accelerate their embrace of mobile payments and gradually discard traditional forms of card payments.

"We can see from recent historical developments that the physical goods, including CDs, film films, and printed Encyclopedia Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica), are almost all replaced by their own electronic products." Nick Holland, senior analyst at Javelin, said.

Who the Lord ups and downs

Of course, it is still an uncertain topic as to which mobile payment method will become the mainstream of the future market.

Specifically, the US mobile payment start-up Square has launched a mobile card reader that can be used with smart phones. The service allows consumers to use the application to match credit card consumption in any 3G or WiFi network state, and enables consumers and merchants to keep the corresponding consumer information, thus greatly reducing the technical threshold and hardware requirements for the payment of credit card consumption. Although the company has long been seen as the biggest innovator in mobile payments, the future of square is fraught with uncertainty after Apple recently launched its own Apple Pay service.

"While Apple Pay is not going to replace square in the short term, in such a new era, Apple's pay to remove the physical card from the mobile payment process has really eclipsed square." "Holland said.

On the other hand, Monaghan believes mobile users under the age of 45 will be more relaxed about embracing this new mobile payment method. Mobile users over the age of 45 will face some challenges in accepting this new payment method, but sooner or later they will be able to do so with the help of young people around them.

"The most likely scenario is that the children of these people will encourage their parents to embrace this new form of payment through ' rhetoric '," he said. For example, they might say, ' Dad, I need to pay my tuition, and I'm going to have to call my money with my mobile Peer-to-peer account. ' In fact, this is precisely the way young people have encouraged their fathers to learn to text. Monaghan added. Ruijie)