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The Mobile Wallet

A new report released this week by Transparency Market Research ('Mobile Wallet Market-Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth and Forecast, 2012-2018') estimates that the global mobile wallet market will reach $1602.4bn by 2018 with EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) holding  the largest market share. 

The huge 30.7% increase in mobile wallet usage which the report forecasts is largely attributed to the increase in SmartPhone use and the facilitation of NFC (Near Field Communication) technology in the user's device and POS (Point of Sale) terminals. 

Many of the large payment players are obviously keen to break into the digital wallet market. Visa, MasterCard, Google, PayPal, Apple and Isis are all vying to take leadership in the field. Although the technology is yet to capture widespread interest, Apple's 'Passbook' is considered a front runner by many analysts due to the company's access to millions of iPhone users, but the race is far from over. Samsung and Visa recently announced that they would be working together to create a contactless mobile payment system that will work on Samsung phones.

Commentators argue that the digital wallet should not necessary be limited to the POS purchase, but should also include e-commerce, facilitating mobile payments through one click shopping. Google is looking to get in on this sector with its Google Wallet system, hoping to track clicks which result in a direct sale, data which often do not have as approximately 70% of clicks result in an offline sale.

As Mobile Network Operators (MNO), payment networks and merchants all compete in the sector, its not hard to see that a service will be created in the near future which will capture the imagination of the customer and whether in a bricks and mortar or online store, have them shopping with just a touch of a SmartPhone.