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How Much Longer Will You Be Carrying a Wallet in Your Pocket?

Mobile Commerce Insider Featured Article

March 25, 2015

How Much Longer Will You Be Carrying a Wallet in Your Pocket?

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By Stefania Viscusi
Assignment Desk Editor

Wallets have been around for ages as a safe keeping place for our important identification documents, payment cards and cash. They are typically pocket-sized – or if you’re like me, take up lots of real estate inside your purse.

One thing we’ve all come to fear with wallets is loss or theft.  This fear has continued to grow as new technologies and tactics are used for theft, even if you still have the wallet safely tucked in your pocket.

To move away from this threat, some people either do not carry cash or even purchase special aluminum RFID blocking cards to put inside their wallets.

Thankfully, as more and more vendors release mobile commerce offerings, we’re moving farther away from having to carry wallets in our pockets altogether.

Some of the biggest names in the tech space Apple (News - Alert), Google and Facebook, have all recently made moves in the space so paying for goods and services through our mobile devices is possible.


As this transition to digital currency and mobile spending occurs, we’re also seeing the addition of more secure measures to lessen risk. Biometric identification solutions for example, help to ensure only the intended user can access the sensitive information using a fingerprint, voice print or even facial recognition.

Google (News - Alert) Wallet has been around for some time and makes it possible for users to keep their gift cards and payment information organized in one location. Now, the company is in headlines with its new ‘Pony Express’ project. This will make it possible for Gmail users to get and pay their bills right from their inbox – without having to leave to the provider’s website to make the payment. 

Image via Shutterstock

Earlier this month, Apple’s CEO also commented on the continued increase in merchants adopting Apple Pay and the company is even pushing merchants to post decals on their store windows and at their registers to remind customers to use Apple Pay at checkout. 

Back in November, Forrester (News - Alert) predicted that mobile payments would flourish into 2019 and hit $142 billion with a larger number of those payments happening in-person, at retail locations. The research company also predicted we would see an increase in peer-to-peer mobile payments by 2019.

In sync with this prediction, Facebook (News - Alert) recently said it was going to start allowing payments through its Messenger app. This would allow people to make Touch ID or pin-protected payments to peers, for free.

Speculation from analysts is that once this is launched in the next few months, it has the ability to possibly disrupt the mobile payments marketplace and create stiff competition for some of the current leaders such as PayPal (News - Alert) and EBay.

Today, as more and more people become dependent on their mobile devices and as retailers step-up their mobile commerce capabilities – we’re looking to a future where our pockets will have more room (maybe for bigger mobile devices?) and our purses won’t be so heavy to carry anymore. 




Edited by Dominick Sorrentino

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