Back from the summer holidays, this edition is dedicated to the future of payments: cryptocurrencies, peer-to-peer banking and in-store purchases.
Let’s start with the services that support web transactions and purchases, with the most famous being PayPal and Google Wallet and newly realised services of the likes of Stripe and Braintree; they all offer developers a platform for payments which are versatile and easily adaptable to any kind of service.
But the web, desktop or mobile services which support e-commerce represent only one of the reasons for the decline of cash payments in favour of digital payments, and we find a great number of start-ups focus on hardware for mobile-in-store payments. We have Square, from the creator of Twitter, Loop and LevelUp. There’s also a special mention for Coin, the service that combines all of your credit cards.
In-store purchases are therefore one of the main battlegrounds between cash and digital payments, with some success stories like the Starbucks’ app. And speaking of apps, we have You Pay Mobile, Banco Popolare’s answer for mobile purchases, developed on the Hi Credits platform by Reply.
Did somebody mention Bitcoin? There has been a lot of discussion around this cryptocurrency, especially because of its troubles history with many ill-defined issues. Any other doubts? Here’s the full story. The diffusion of Bitcoin is still very limited but there are already alternatives, like Stellar.
Another new era for payments is represented by transactions without intermediaries, peer-to-peer. A few examples are Venmo and Square Cash which allow people to send and receive money via e-mail. And we cannot forget M-pesa, the micro-transaction system via telephone credit, which is widespread in developing countries.
We should also mention the services for savings management, like Mint and Simple, both of which are independent from your bank.
Have you read the edition of R20 dedicated to wearable technologies? It’s an interesting fusion between bracelets and purchases, distributed by Disney in all its parks and resorts, needed to make use of all the rides and attractions and to make purchases inside the park.
That’s it for now. Next month, you can read about a new tech trend in the new edition of R20.