Starbucks' Payments App and how it could Disrupt the Industry (SAI)

Business Insider has written an interesting piece about the Starbucks payments app and its disruptive potential for a number of payments players. 

Although, I don't agree with much of what they write, I like the idea of a relatively small change/innovation having widereaching implications for an entire industry (and beyond), illustrating the level of uncertainty and number of moving parts in the payments industry right now.

First of all, I should point out that Starbucks' solution is not NFC - it relies on barcode scanning, a much more basic technology, not dissimilar to what FaceCash has introduced.  Whatever form of mobile payments that eventually wins out, I don't think it will be this, and that Starbucks will soon need to upgrade the technology.

I also think Business Insider over-exaggerates the impact that Starbucks will have on the payment industry overall.

Still, if we were to take the article to be about the emergence of mobile payments, rather than simply about Starbucks, it is absolutely worth the read!


http://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-mobile-payments-2011-1#first-heres-how-starbucks-mobile-payments-work-its-really-straightforward-1