What Mobile Payments Mean For Commerce

With guest host Jane Clayson.

After cash. More and more, people are just waving their phone to pay. Now comes Apple Pay. We’ll look at where this goes. Plus: we'll hear about how garnished wage tactics might fare in an e-commerce world.

First there was bartering.  Then cash.  Then checking accounts and credit cards.  Every advance led to a big transformation in how we pay for things, how our society runs.  Now, with the promise of Apple Pay, mobile payments is getting its big break.  Just go to the checkout line and whip out your phone.  Mobile payments have been around for years, but with Apple’s muscle, banks, retailers and credit card companies are falling in line.  Big promises of radically better security and convenience.  This hour, On Point: mobile payments, and currency’s next evolution.
-- Jane Clayson

Ruth Reader, writer for the online technology news site VentureBeat. (@RuthReader)

Jason Buckweitz, associate director at the Columbia Business School's Columbia Institute for Tele-Information.

VentureBeat: Why Apple Pay might succeed where Google, PayPal, and Visa have failed — "Consumers are going to be the toughest sell of all. One of the main reasons that Google Wallet and Softcard (née Isis) struck out is because contact-less payments don’t solve a consumer problem."

CNET: Measuring Apple Pay's success: Give it years, not months -- "Mastercard, Visa and American Express all see Apple Pay as a way to increase the volume of transactions. Remember that the enemy for the entire mobile payment ecosystem is cash transactions."

Bloomberg View: Apple Pay Could Make You Poorer -- "Skeptics have focused on questions of security and privacy, but prospective users might want to pause over a different problem: When payment becomes easier, and when people don’t see the money they’re handing over, they tend to spend a lot more. And as payment becomes more automatic, people become less sensitive to what they’re losing. Apple Pay users might find that their thinner phones are making their bank accounts thinner as well."

Chris Arnold, business correspondent for NPR News. (@Chris_ArnoldNPR)

NPR News: Millions Of Americans' Wages Seized Over Credit Card And Medical Debt — "Millions of Americans are still grappling with debt they've accumulated since the recession hit. And new numbers out Monday show many are having a tougher time than you might think. One in 10 working Americans between the ages of 35 and 44 are getting their wages garnished. That means their pay is being docked — often over an old credit card debt, medical bill or student loan."