It might not historically be best known for attracting major interest from the payments industry, but this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is already providing the backdrop to a raft of exciting announcements set to shape the future of cashless payments.
As an innovator in the mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) space, Miura Systems has built its success on producing payments solutions to meet the ever evolving needs of consumers. So it’s great to see the industry innovating with the same goal in mind – especially new partnerships and products that will continue to accelerate the shift to mobile.
What’s new this year?
For the first time at the 49-year-old CES, this year has seen the appearance of the Digital Money Forum – a dedicated conference track devoted to the future of cashless payments. It covers wearables, biometrics, virtual currencies and blockchains, digital wallets and much more; pretty innovative stuff for a middle-aged technology show.
Already at CES 2016 we’ve seen Korean electronics giant Samsung announce a major update to its burgeoning Samsung Pay mobile payment system. This will see the platform made available in Australia, Singapore and Brazil – in addition to the markets of China, UK and Spain announced previously for 2016, and of course the US and South Korea, where it’s already up and running.
After Apple and Google Android, it’s great to see another major technology firm put its money where its mouth is and get behind smartphone-based payments. We’re incredibly excited by the potential in these systems to offer merchants and PSPs the opportunity to provide fast, seamless and secure transactions for consumers.
After all, that’s why our card machines already support Samsung Pay and Apple Pay.
Wearables and beyond
Even more exciting is the innovation going on at the intersection of wearable technology and payments. Here there are potentially even greater opportunities for the industry to create technologies and systems which meet consumer demand for speed and ease-of-use head on. And that’s exactly what MasterCard and fintech firm Coin are doing with a new partnership announced at CES 2016.
The tie-up will see Coin provide the software and hardware to integrate with MasterCard’s Digital Enablement Service (MDES) so manufacturers can easily integrate mobile payments into pretty much anything which can fit an NFC chip inside. Fitness tracker-makers Atlas and Moov have already signed up alongside smart watch producer Omate, but really the sky’s the limit in terms of wearables.
As with the push towards smartphone-based payments, it’s all about providing as much choice for the consumer as possible – meeting heightened expectations around convenience. If you adopt this strategy as a merchant it can only improve the overall payment experience – which ultimately means maximising your profits with happier customers and fewer queue drop outs.
It’s something we firmly believe in at Miura, which is why we’ve already integrated smartphone-payment systems into our card machines and are always on the lookout for new ideas to help generate value for our clients, industry partners and their end customers.
If CES is just the start, we’ve got another busy and exciting year ahead.
