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Monday, October 1, 2012

When Will We No Longer Need To Carry Credit Cards

The latest Samsung smartphone commercial shows two people sharing a playlist, not songs, just a playlist.  Not as cool as it should be.  So when will a commercial show a person bumping phones with a store register to authorize a sale?  Now that would be pretty cool.  But we haven't gotten there yet.

Certainly, we are leaning that way and the discussion of mobile payment is a first step.  But most of the apps being discussed still involve a piece of plastic being swiped by a device.  Whether a credit card reader at a store or a device on a smartphone, a physical swipe is still a requirement.  For small businesses and individuals, an app like Square certainly provides a cheaper rate to process than dealing with credit card companies directly.  That rate must certainly rise or it will undoubtedly cause bigger merchandisers to complain about paying more more transaction, despite the large amount of business they deliver.

Can we find ourselves one day leaving our plastic credit cards in a drawer and not in our wallet?  The latest iteration of the iPhone decided not to add an NFC to the mix.  For Apple, it sees that the world is not yet ready for such interaction.  But it is heading that way.