Blog: John Myers: M-Commerce on the rise!

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M-Commerce on the rise!

The concept of mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has been around for at least the past 10 years. Visionaries and handset makers have foreseen a time when you could buy everything with your wireless handset and have those purchases magically appear on your phone bill.

Now, AT&T is attempting to get the ball truly rolling by "pre-loading" on-deck applications for mobile banking.

While this sounds like a great idea, the number of "first movers" is limited when it comes to financial transactions. Any organization that gets involved in the contactless payment market whether it be m-commerce based or credit card based (see Visa and Mastercard) will have to realize that Americans are often pulled kicking and screaming from their financial transaction habits. Remember that this is the country that has had issues moving to a dollar coin and basically has the same color and format of paper currency as it did 50 years ago.

For telecom service providers, the competition will be fierce from the credit card companies. And it is possible that the operational risks associated with increased credit exposure and pure financial third party settlement arrangements will outweigh the benefits.

Yes, this is a potentially rich marketplace. But if the adoption rates aren't there, it will be difficult to realize a future where wireless devices replace wallets for money as well as they have replaced watches for time.

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, M-Commerce, Visa, Mastercard, Contactless Payment