Smartphones are the New Credit Card

Though virtual payments through phones have been around for years, many have been wary about the use of paying through smartphones. As the years have progressed digital money has slowly been replacing the use of physical money in many people’s lives. While credit cards have begun to take over the use of money in everyday life it is very likely to see even the small plastic cards phased out soon enough. Instead of carrying multiple credit cards on you a person can simply pull out their smartphone, open and app and pay with a scan of their screen.

Digital payments have been around for many years. Online shopping has taken off and many people prefer to shop online then going to a store. The options of online shopping are limitless and it allows for many more options than the average person can get within basic retail stores. Online payments also can be used to pay bills which eliminate the use of checks for such payments. The use of checks has almost been completely phased out and most young people never even own a check book of their own. Checks now are mostly used in the form of presents in cards for birthdays and celebrations.

Recently investors have been investing large amounts into smartphone payment tools such as Square, which already has an investment value of 6 billion dollars. These card readers have begun to take off in popularity in the past few years, especially with small business owners, as it allows for easier payment by credit cards from shoppers. Other areas have begun to also take off in the form of digital payments such as Paypal and a Facebook one touch pay system. Apple is also expected to be releasing the ApplePay system which is available for iPhone 6 users. With this system iPhone 6 users just need to use their finger print scanner to pay and many large retailers have already jumped on board with this new system.

With the lowered use in using a credit card, Square will likely be phased out over time but payment forms such as ApplePay is likely to be the new big thing in payments. This will completely eliminate the use of the plastic card and give people direct access at all time to their payments. I feel that this new shift could be both beneficial and negative to society. In the same way that the use of credit cards caused peoples debt to soar I feel that using smartphones as a way to pay will do the same. People will be much more likely to buy something because they have their payment method likely already sitting in the palm of their hand. With the lack of having to take out a physical object people will be more likely to buy impulse purchases which can negatively affect the economy. Some positives could be the ability to add some more protection in some instances to the use of payments such as using the fingerprint scanner to be able to pay. Instead of inputting a 4 digit code which could be stolen a finger print can’t as easily be stolen. It will be interesting to see where this will progress in the near future.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/tech/mobile/mobile-payments/index.html?iref=allsearch