Mobile Wallet: the Battle is Shaping Up

The attached article provides a very interesting perspective on the various players that are aiming to build your mobile wallet.

It assesses 3 different groups:

1. Mobile platform providers (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.)
2. Mobile carriers
3. Banks

In my view, mobile platform providers will be the clear winners of this battle.  The mobile wallet will essentially be a software solution and Apple, Google and Microsoft are clearly better at building software than carriers or banks.

They will also be better able to leverage platform/network effects than the other players, particularly by triggering innovation through app markets, etc.

This is not to say that carriers and banks will not play a part.  Particularly banks will still be a key provider of payments solutions, but probably through the platform providers' payment interface (i.e. Google Checkout or iTunes/iCash).  This way, Apple and Google will gain a foothold in the payments market, without having to take ownership of the complexity of the full payments value chain.

Read what the author of the article says.
http://snasm.com/article/nfc-2011-whos-building-your-mobile-wallet?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter