As more people warm up to electronic (and online) payment, companies providing these services are expected to reap profits as long as they can attract enough customers to their platform.
Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, AliPay and Konga Pay are different companies that have chosen to process one form of electronic payment or the other for their users. What came first, the chicken or the egg?
There is something common about these companies, unlike banks that start up before getting customers, these other companies have a huge customer base who are already using their products and services already. Apple for instance already process payment for its customers who have iTunes account and have added a card. Introducing Apple Pay just means that they have a huge customer base they can tap into and start appealing to immediately–they are not starting from Zero.
Apple won’t be processing payments only for items that are bought through the iTunes store, but will be processing for items sold through other retail stores online and offline with Apple Pay. This move by Apple is to replace your card. They are simply saying ‘give us your card, so that you don’t have to bring it out each time you want to shop in an offline or online store – entering passwords or long strings of numbers’.
Alibaba and Konga have something in common. They already sell and receive payment from their users as well, but they were not the ones processing the payments. At the moment, buying on Alibaba/AliExpress can still be done with other third party payment processor; same with Konga–you’ll still be able to pay using other third party payment options when Konga Pay rolls out.
Right now, you can pay using Alipay on Alibaba and you’ll soon be able to pay using Konga Pay on Konga.com.
Facebook has been in payment business since 2007 and is processing payment for Game players and advertisers. They are taking it a step further to make sending money to friends easier through Messenger.
Sending money to friends won’t just become easier through messenger, but Facebook is claiming it will be secure and free. This is only possible for users in the US who are using Facebook Messenger on Android and iOS and desktop. This move signals something huge coming from Facebook. Facebook is offering it for free for now, but for how long? Who pays the charges for these transactions?
Facebook is betting big on payment
Facebook recently hired PayPal’s president David Marcus to oversee its messaging product. If Facebook can convince the large crowd of Facebook users to add their card to Facebook by using this new feature, they can position themselves as an e-commerce giant that competes directly with Amazon and Alibaba. With Facebook already testing a “buy” button on its social network that allows you to instantly purchase items that show up in your newsfeed, having people store their credit card makes the “buy” button a killer move.
Facebook has also made it possible for its users to message using the desktop browser by visiting messenger.com. This is void of the distraction caused by the Facebook Newsfeed. It will be interesting to see how Facebook intends to wield this.
Not to forget that during the recent Facebook conference, they also mentioned that they have been testing out how to use messenger as a tool for customer support with some brands. With this, it becomes clear that Facebook is growing into a platform that is going to be around for a long time and not be myspaced (become irrelevant) anytime soon. What do you think?
