Mobile Payments for Conducting M-Commerce

Background

With increase in the number of mobile users and availability of high bandwidth 4G networks, mobile phones are not merely being used for communication and entertainment purpose. Consumers have steadily started using mobile phones as tools for banking, paying bills, budgeting and shopping. In the past, consumers used mobile payments mainly to purchase digital services that they consumed on their mobile devices. Recently, however, consumers have expanded use of mobile payments and have adopted it for purchases of physical goods, payment of bills, shopping, ticketing, paying at kiosks, toll plazas, automated vending machines etc. A Survey of Consumers’ Use of Mobile Financial Services by Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Consumer and Community Affairs (Governors, 2014) on US adult population revealed that by 2014, usage of mobile payments had increased to 22 percent for mobile phone users and increased to 28 percent for Smartphone users. Forrester forecasts that US mobile payments will reach US $90 b in 2017.