On Monday, November 2, I attended the Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic's panel on Mobile Commerce, which asked the question, with mobile technology usage growing excessively each day, why hasn't the U.S. succeeded in making a more rapid transition to conducting financial transactions via mobile devices? 

Answers to the question span from privacy and security concerns, lack of standardization in the mobile space, poor user design and user experience, and the number of platforms available, which present a daunting task to companies who want to develop mobile commerce services. 

With mobile commerce applications, mobile payment platforms balance the other side of the mobile commerce equation.  The more comfortable, secure, and easy it is for a customer and vendor to conduct transactions and feel fully satisfied in the outcome, the more seamless mobile commerce will integrate into popular consciousness. According to Gartner, by the end of 2009, there will be 74.4 million people using mobile devices to purchase goods and services globally, and by the end of 2012, that the number will likely double.

Harold Hambrose, CEO of Electronic Ink and author of Wrench in the System, gave the opening remarks.  As a pioneer in user-centered system development, Hambrose emphasized the inverse relationship between design and mobile technology.  Design challenges increase as mobile technology grows smaller, but increases in usage.  When developing technology services and user experience, we have to keep in mind the destination of our customers: what they need and where they need to go. 

Ray Sosa, Founding Partner of MPOWER Ventures and Chairman and CEO of MPOWER Labs gave a fascinating keynote presentation.  MPOWER Ventures delivers financial empowerment to underserved populations.  Its portfolio spans international payments, mobile payments, asset building and retail financial services in regions including North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.  Sosa defined underserved populations as the estimated 2 billion people around the world that lack access to safe, convenient and affordable financial services.  These individuals are underserved by traditional bank offerings and are living in a cash economy that has very high transaction costs, no opportunity for leverage or asset building, and are caught in a permanent state of financial instability and insecurity.  This population has leapfrogged technologies, incorporating cell phones into their daily lives where there was once little to no communication technologies.  They represent a global opportunity for mobile commerce services.  He offered key considerations when developing mobile commerce services for not just underserved populations, but for all customers: universal access, funding and fungibility, simplicity, scalability, cost efficiencies, and time to critical mass. 

Omar Green, Director of strategic mobile initiatives at Intuit, presented a case study.  He introduced Intuit’s newly launched Credit Card Acceptance service, GoPayment.  After several years of research and development, GoPayment launched catering to the merchant vendor who is constantly working in the field.  Intuit sought to address the problem of getting paid for services quickly and on the spot.  It’s the fastest growing payments product that Intuit has ever launched.  View the demo here.

Other panelists included Noah Glass, Founder and CEO of GoMobo, Anil Jacob, First Vice President of Card Strategy with JPMorgan Chase, and Mike Urban, Senior Director, Fraud Solutions for FICO.  Rick Rasansky, Founder and CEO of Yorn LLC and Co-Founder of Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic, served as the moderator. 

Rasansky’s first question to the group was: why hasn’t mobile payment taken off in the U.S. as quickly as other regions?  Roy Sosa responded that in the U.S. carriers dominate and are reluctant to share customers across multiple carriers.  In other countries, mobile users are accustomed to switching out SIM cards for a various purposes.  Omar Green stated that banks and networks own you as a customer and haven’t figured out how to split profits.  How much will the bank get and how much will the operator get?  Mike Urban added that is also a challenge to figure out who owns the risk.  Anil Jacob discussed the fact that we haven’t reached a point where we can discuss sharing profits.  He thinks it’s not just about payments, but about adopting a system that works for everyone.  Noah Glass added that he agreed and also thinks the challenge lies in user adoption. 

An interesting debate surrounding the differences between mobile banking and mobile payment systems began, but unfortunately was cut short due to time constraints. 

I wished there was more of a discussion regarding user adoption, especially in different regions of the world.  How do cultural differences play into mobile commerce, especially when catering to underserved populations in emerging markets?  Also, there wasn’t much time spent discussing security issues.  Mike Urban did draw parallels between mobile devices and computers, saying the same steps to make a computer secure would have to be done to make mobile devices secure.  He mentioned that NFC (Near Field Communication) technologies are more secure than signing your name on a piece of paper, alluding to the fact mobile commerce transactions should be more secure than traditional transaction technology.