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There was once a time when I was reluctant to purchase anything on eBay because I was afraid of having my payment information, identity and life stolen. Of course, that was over a decade ago and things have changed since then. Eventually, it involved into a fear of purchasing things using my smartphone, but according to eBay CEO John Donahoe, “mobile is the safest way to pay.”
Great, now it’s a lot easier to make those impulse buys on the go. Thanks to PayPal, whose tremendous push in the mobile payments space is making mobile commerce that much easier, we get the same feeling of safety and security in making payments online.
Mashable reports:
Donahoe’s argument was that there isn’t “a shred of financial information” stored on the mobile phone, which makes it a much safer entity to lose than the wallet by comparison. Donahoe believes we’re closing in on the day when the mobile phone will be both personal identifier and credit card, and eliminate the need for a wallet altogether — PayPal being your credit card replacement and the mobile phone being your wallet, in his mind.
It’s almost difficult to imagine that not even the slightest bit of financial info is stored on our smartphones, but it’s likely. The future of mobile payments is taking over, and we’ll not only be able to make transactions via companies like PayPal and Square, but we’ll also be able to wave our phones over scanners to pay for all kinds of things, too. It’s already happening.
Of course, this only means that mobile security is going to have to make a steep climb to keep up, but I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t have to carry my wallet around me anymore. Hopefully my smartphone will handle everything from ID to payments and transactions.
[Via: Mashable]
About The Author
Marc Flores
Marc has been a mobile fanatic for the better part of a decade and has had more devices pass through his hands than he would care to count. Originally from Los Angeles and briefly in San Francisco, Marc now lives in Brooklyn where, unlike Will Park, he longs for simpler times and simpler technology. All the while, he writes about gadgets and wireless technology as he tinkers, hacks and ultimately breaks most of his gadgets in the process. Marc has written about the mobile industry for Boy Genius Report, MobileCrunch, Laptop Magazine and has had his work appear in the Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, CrunchGear and more.
