First of all, I would be remiss in this post if I didn’t start by sharing my condolences and most heartfelt sadness for the Haitian people who have suffered so much, and everyone who has suffered because of this terrible tragedy. My wife and I were in Phuket two days before the Tsunami of 2004 and we were still in Thailand when it happened. While we were not harmed directly, it was and still is a heartwrenching subject.

Now on to mobile payments…

Very early on, I saw the multitude of opportunities to donate money for Haiti via text message. In fact I texted Haiti to 90999, donating $10. On a side note, the process was pretty easy – only one more text required with the word YES confirming it was intentional.

Now, only 4 days later, over $10 Million has been donated by Mobile Phone. The question for the mobile payments community is… will this be the watershed moment that breaks mobile payments into the mainstream? Of course, I’m not suggesting that payment on your phone bill is the way of the future. The carriers have ensured that’s impossible with their 50% revenue share, $20 maximum charge and up to 90 days to settle. Instead, I am talking about the consumer becoming very quickly more comfortable with mobile payments. There are many advances in this space that have prepped mobile phones to be the way to pay in 2010. This may be the final straw. Companies like Billing Revolution will get immediate benefit, and payments companies can capitalize with a concerted effort to enable mobile payments.

The holy grail of mobile payments is Near Field Communications (NFC), and there’s been lots of news lately indicating NFC handsets are going to be shipped in significant numbers, and very persistent rumors of an NFC enabled Apple iPhone. This could be tied to other rumors of a partnership between First Data, Visa and AT&T to launch NFC mobile payments.

Could the Haiti earthquake be the catalyst to help mobile payments cross the chasm?

You can see more at the Double Diamond Group website, including relevant payments industry news, information on our payments consulting practice, payments industry hot topics and more.

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