Thumps up for mobile payment

This week topic is about mobile payment. For now, mobile payments is increasing with a massive numbers,  its reaches $1.3 trillion worldwide by 2017, a growth of over 400% since 2012.  Part of this growth comes from transfer services like Western Union with mobile payment systems offered by conventional banks and companies like Dwolla. Places like Kenya have been M-PESA, which is mobile payment for the substitution of cash. Also, people use PayPal from a mobile device to make purchases from an on-line commerce site (Sherman, 2017).

As the world is increasing with the mobile payment, Australia also follow the trend. There are two common forms of mobile payment which people can use at retail stores: Apple pay and Wechat pay.

From my research, Apple pay has been release around the end of October 2016 in Australia. But it’s not a huge platform of mobile payment until 2018, people start adopting this fast and convenient way.  Apple Pay is a digital wallet that can securely store back card, which you just simply use your ‘wallet’ to make payments without needing a physical card in the pocket. Apple Pay lets you use your phone’s Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip to connect to an EFTPOS machine and make the transaction all in a matter of seconds(Hurwood, 2019). It is only require customers to enter pin if the amount of purchase is over $100. Not only that Apple Pay also allow customers to jump online to make purchases. By simply log into your Apple Pay account, rather than the need to enter their banking information again and again at their point of purchase.

Very convenient isn’t it ?. That’s why it make many Aussie fell in love with it. Personably, right from the beginning when its release I have been becoming a huge fan. For me I would not want to carry my wallet or card around since mobile phone is always with me. It is achieving two things with one action.

The only downside of Apple pay is that it is not collaborate with Westpac bank. So Westpac users cannot get the taste of Apple pay.

The other common form of mobile payment in Australia is WeChat pay.

It is especially design for Chinese users who are students of tourist in Australia. Australia have expand their boundary and offer Wechat pay because numbers of tourist and international students are increasing more and more every year. Noted that foreigner can also use it, but they require to have the Chinese bank. To explain Wechat Pay it is a payment solution completely integrated inside the social and messaging application of WeChat. To make payment, users simple scan the shop QR code and enter the amount they need to pay. That way the payment has been establish and users are all good to go (Graziani, 2017).

Like Apple pay, Wechat pay also has downside that is make restrictions on banks. Let’s hope the service are more open up, upgrade and allow more banks in the future. So more people can try it out!