It was the year 1997 in Helsinki when Coca Cola woke the world with a revolutionary vending machine, one that allowed the customers to purchase their drinks through text messages. The world has not been the same place ever since. Digital payments in the form of mobile wallets have captured the financial market with a storm. Payments that started with barter system have evolved to Mobile Wallets, NFC, BLE and RFID. And we know that this is just the beginning. With the advancement of parallel technology, no stream is left alienated. AI and ML have already begun sifting financial transactions across the world which will soon translate into further enhancement of digital financial ecosystem.
According to Statista, total transactional value in the Digital Payments segment amounts to US$4,137,523m in 2019. This amount is expected to grow at an annual rate of 12.8% mounting to US$6,699,201m by 2023. These figures are not surprising given the reach of mobile devices at 96% that surpasses the number of bank accounts at 89%.
Due to the omni-present mobile devices across the world, mobile payment solutions are on an upward trajectory. What is contributing most to the immense popularity of mobile payment services are the P2P payment services by the large number of mobile users. The prominent markets for mobile money services have been the unbanked and underbanked economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia that are catching up magnificently in the past decade. The highest cumulated transactional numbers however according to Statista, belong to China who have transacted US$1,570,194m in the year 2019 so far.
The future looks bright for mobile money providers as we move ahead with huge prospects in the field of mobile financial services. Let’s talk about the prominent future trends comprising of both technology and user experience augmentations in the mobile payment services that have stitched the world together transforming it into a smaller ecosystem:
Future trends in the Digital Financial Solutions
Security
We cannot talk about financial transactions and not talk about security. Being the focal point of the thriving industry, security has been both the top challenge and an opportunity provider to the FIIs across the world. It will continue to be so as the industry watchers projects $31.3 billion in global card losses in 2018, prompting the FIs to push their boundaries while making the transaction process easier for their users and picking out the fraudsters.
UX is the King
No user-based service is complete without a strong UI to boast of, a minimalistic design prompting user to achieve their goal in minimal clicks without any distractions. Customer experience is of primary importance to any industry and here we are talking about letting the customers trust FIs with their money. A sensitive subject indeed. Ensuring the UX is complimenting the services is what the FIs should focus upon. To achieve this, we must understand that the market is flooding with options, the services are being launched and dumped at record pace and the customer is no more the novice we can experiment with.
Inclusion of AI
As mentioned earlier, audience intelligence has entered the fintech industry as well and how! Chat assistants, analysing and monitoring real-time transactions and ensuring customer’s money traverses risk-free – AI has transformed the way businesses are done and the information is captured scathe-free.
IoT
While IoT has been around for a while now, it has recently turned digital transactions on its head. While earlier a card had to be a mandate that would bridge a bank account to a merchant, IoT has allowed this luxury through any device that can be turned into a PoS device, a mobile phone or even a simple RFID enabled sticker. A single device can be both used to send or accept payments, between peers, between merchants or a mixture of both. The possibilities are endless and so are the business opportunities.
Read Also
Mobile Money Ushers A New Era of Cashless Continents
Mobile Wallet: The Buzz Word of Payment Options
Coming together of Fintech and Banks
Ever since the world has gone digital, banks and fintech service providers have had a symbiotic relationship. While banks have the brand recognition, industry knowledge and a strong customer base; fintech providers have the technology these customers appreciate. An understanding of the strengths of both the entities lets them together achieve the desired results – customer satisfaction.
It won’t be long before you are alerted by an AI enabled device about your financials, your expenditure, savings, bill payments or loans. Or rather cut down your lavish dinners and extra shopping once you have reached your financial threshold for the month!
Panamax offers an all-inclusive mobile wallet solution that offers evolved use cases Our product team ensures that we are ahead of the market when it comes to the solutions on offer and the customer demands that vary across the geographies. We have our live mobile wallets running across the world with a whole lot of money being handled even as I write this or as you read this. We are passionate about developing and customizing our solutions for our customers depending on their requirements while offering consultations that are a result of our two decades of market experience. You can read more about our mobile wallet solution MobiFin at https://www.panamaxil.com/mobifin
