The rise of the sharing economy is leading to a growth in mobile payment, according to Dr. Pinar Ozcan, an associate professor at Warwick Business School.
Speaking at the recent WBS PayTech Conference in London, Dr. Ozcan said the use of sharing platforms such as Airbnb and Uber means that mobile technology is playing an increasing role in the way consumers pay for services and goods.
“Many of these sharing platforms use mobile payment technology and so their growth will encourage the growth of PayTech in this area,” said Dr. Ozcan.
“These platforms encourage business at an individual level, rather than going through companies. Calling for a taxi through Uber or booking a room on Airbnb or even finding the nearest car repair shop all involves apps. They are doing business from peer to peer and bypassing companies and it is all done through mobile payment technology.”
PwC has estimated that the global sharing economy will grow by $320bn (£220.7bn) in the next decade, from $15bn (£10.3bn) in 2013 to $335bn (£231bn) in 2025, and Dr. Ozcan believes this will push up the use of mobile payment technology as well.
For many years, the uptake of mobile payments, particularly those using Near Field Communication (NFC), was delayed due to issues between banks and technology firms.
“It has been recognised since the early 2000s that NFC was the preferred choice of technology to get the mobile payment industry rolling,” said Dr. Ozcan, who is researching the UK’s sharing economy.
“But mobile operators needed access to bank accounts, while banks, in turn, needed mobile operators because the user’s bank information and the payment software needed to be integrated into the mobile service of the user. But wrangling over who dealt with — and essentially owned — the consumer resulted in it being delayed.”
More recently, the launch of Apple Pay in 2015 has brought the return of Google Wallet and this is predicted to lead to rapid growth in the technology over the next few years.
“Now that Apple has joined them, the fact that two big technology players are backing the payments system on their devices will certainly help with more widespread adoption issues,” Dr. Ozcan said.
“One thing that Apple has done right is to use its reputation as a top technology firm and platform provider to strike deals with the industry leaders in banking and mobile communications to finally get them to co-operate. When a company like Apple gets behind a technology, nobody wants to miss that boat.”
Tags: sharing economy
