The most interesting article that I came across this week was about cell phone payments and an interview with RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis.
I have been particularly interested in payment processing with mobile devices for some time now and specifically noticed that its really starting to take off in other places of the world such as Asia. I always imagined that if payment processing were to take place, it would really need to be driven through the carriers. I guess Mike Lazaridis also sees it that way.
In his interview with Laptop, there were discussions about PayPal and the ability for apps to be paid for through Paypal. Unlike Apples iTunes model, this means that Blackberry users have one extra step and that is to sign up with PayPal. Obviously Lazaridis recognizes this barrier and has mentioned that they are working with carrier partners to get the payment processes to be handled on their end. If this does in fact happen, the mobile space in North America would forever be changed.
The only reservation I have is where the carriers would draw the line on payments. Would they allow for payments only from applications or would they allow payments to be processed through retailers and be billed to a cell phone bill at the end of the month. And if they did in fact allow for billing by retailers would they ultimately become a credit agency? Would they allow some of their users to make purchases and they would prohibit others? Will they begin to replace VISA, MasterCard and AMEX?
I can’t say for certain what role they will play but I am sure that they will take a larger role in our daily payment process. This is only a little while away and it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.