True Merchant Shares That Consumer Mobile Payments Are Missing The Mark

The rise of "tap and pay" is at a standstill, experts say. Consumers and merchants are on different ends of mobile payment progress. While businesses have been able to accept credit cards on android with portable card readers from True Merchant and others for several years, consumers have yet to find the same convenience in actually paying with their smartphones.

"Tap and pay" is the concept of being able to simply tap one's mobile phone over a merchant's payment scanner to complete a purchase. Mobile phone users wishing to pay by this method download an application and save credit and debit card information in the account. The advancement of this method has been impeded, however, by a lack of universality. Merchants, as well as mobile providers, are not all accepting the same apps or using the same scanners; and even the apps don't support all major credit cards.

Three top mobile providers-Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T-have aligned themselves with a mobile payment standard called ISIS. ISIS allows users to store payment information within the app and pay with their phones. However, its acceptance is limited, currently being supported by retailers in Texas and Utah only. The mobile companies using this app have also blocked the use of some other payment apps, like Google Wallet, so options have been limited, consequently inhibiting growth of other apps.

The only options that presently have limited effectiveness are proprietary apps for individual companies. These are the applications that users download to use only at specific places, like the Apple Store App and Starbucks payment app, which permits customers to pay at these locations with gift cards, credit cards and redeem discounts by scanning their phone. Indeed, Starbucks appears to be the most successful in the mobile payment market, accounting for most of the $500 million in mobile payments last year.

While individual brands are innovative for having developed their own mobile payment systems, this is far from perfect. Payment apps are supposed to provide ease and convenience. If companies only use their systems, applications will cause confusion and will overload smartphones with too many programs as well as the cards that are normally stuffed into a wallet.

True Merchant's and other companies' portable card readers that plug into cellphones were a step in the right direction for mobile processing, however progress must continue. To make actual tap and pay work, a universally-accepted program must be used by both consumers and merchants. Shoppers will do less app-juggling and all merchants will accept the same supported card brands, all accommodated by a universal scanning system!

True Merchant is a payment processing and merchant service solutions company headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. The company is dedicated not only to providing customized payment processing solutions, but also to sharing important industry news with customers. For more information about True Merchant's services, visit www.truemerchant.com.