While mobile payments have been increasingly popular in recent years, they have been on the rise for around a decade as our world has become more digital. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many consumers to change the way they buy, and this trend is not showing any signs of slowing down; 85% of Americans own a smartphone, so can you imagine how many mobile transactions are there? A lot! It is expected that 46.8% of smartphone users would be using their devices for point-of-sale mobile money services this year.
Benefits of Mobile Payment Acceptance for Your Business
There are many benefits to accepting mobile payments if your company is not already doing so.
Here are 6 perks to think about:
Usefulness
The majority of users of mobile payments claim convenience as their main motivation; 66% often use mobile wallets like Samsung Pay or more-used Apple Pay to make payments because they are more practical than other payment methods.
By allowing mobile payments, your company will streamline the checkout process for customers, improving their interaction with you and potentially increasing conversion rates.
Your company can benefit from accepting mobile payments in a convenient way as well. Whenever you enable mobile banking, you can take payments from customers wherever you are, giving your company the freedom to set up shop at regional events like farmer markets or fairs!
Stay Combative
When the COVID-19 epidemic was at its worst, mobile payments helped many businesses not just stay afloat but also stay in operation; 90% of small firms identified e-commerce as the basis of surviving the pandemic in January 2022. According to Visa, contactless payments like tap-to-pay increased by over 30% during March 2020 and until March 2021.
Mobile payments have become increasingly popular as a result of the pandemic, according to industry analysts. You can maintain your competitiveness by allowing mobile payments at your place of business!
Simplify Business Procedures
Your firm has a ton of opportunities to operate more effectively thanks to mobile payments!
By taking payments from mobile devices:
- electronic inventory management can get simpler.
- you have immediate access to digital sales records.
- simplify the checkout procedure and make it possible to complete it from any location (see our earlier remark about usefulness).
- embrace new e-commerce chances for your company.
Go Green
More environmentally friendly is exactly mobile payments! When customers pay using a mobile device, you can then send them an electronic receipt from your business, either by text message or email. There is no need for a printed receipt because this transaction is electronic (and, eventually, paper waste).
Loyalty
It is simple to integrate a reward program into your customers’ interactions thanks to a variety of mobile payment alternatives. Customers are enticed to make more purchases from you by receiving coupons or earning points, stars, or awards each time they complete a mobile payment transaction. Mobile banking makes it simple to thank clients for their patronage and encourage repeat business.
Consumers, especially millennials, frequently view perks and discounts as a perk for choosing mobile payment methods over conventional ones!
Boost Sales and Profits
Did you know that clients who use mobile payment typically spend more money than those who use more conventional payment methods? 41% of customers who shop in physical locations have given up on a purchase because there were no digital payment choices.
Think about a prospective consumer who discovers they forgot their credit or debit cards while shopping. They can pay with their phones without having to look in their wallets or handbags for another form of payment or return the goods. Younger people are progressively more likely to follow this trend.
When your company takes mobile payments, you streamline inventory data collecting, stay competitive, and entice customers to come back with mobile rewards. You also speed up and simplify the checkout process. With any of these thoughts in mind, embracing mobile payments is indeed a reasonably cheap approach to transforming your company and boosting sales.
The Other Factors
Even while some companies are moving toward (or have already moved toward) just handling electronic payments, you must think about what is best for your company. Although Gen-Z and millennial clients favor mobile purchases, older demographic customers could prefer conventional ways of payment.
Some customers are less likely than others to utilize mobile payment methods because they worry that they would be less secure than more established options. However, according to Investopedia research, the contrary is really the case.
Regardless of which payment method(s) you decide to use for your company, be careful to let potential clients know what forms of payment you will accept.
Top 5 Mobile Payments Risks That Can Cost Businesses a Fortune
According to the most recent report, 56% of consumers are eager to be using their smartphones to pay for the goods they are shopping for. Mobile wallets like Zimpler are transforming the payment landscape. They can be used even for betting as all sites for this purpose that have their reputation to fight for, such as those at bookmaker-expert.com/paymentmethod/zimpler/, enabled such an option. Mobile wallets do not differ from the rule that new vulnerabilities and hazards are inevitably created by technological innovation in every field.
There are hackers out there that actively search for app flaws in an effort to steal money or misuse customer data, which could cause significant financial and brand damage to firms. In a poll conducted by PWC a few years ago on mobile wallets, 79% of respondents expressed concern about the possibility of identity theft when their information was delivered wirelessly.
Weaknesses in the CDMA or GSM Protocols
Did you realize that your CDMA or GSM service providers might be hacked as well? Do you know how? Service payment providers validate your account using a variety of methods, like messages, such as CDMA or GSM communication channels. However, these channels do not offer the appropriate level of encryption protection, leaving it open to stream interception and real-time ’sniffing’ by hackers.
Preventive steps: Businesses can utilize technology services that employ specialized double 2048-bit encryption for the entire data stream moving to and from your mobile device to safeguard user information. This makes such fraud impractical because of the time required for decryption.
Malware and Spying Software
Sometimes, while downloading other apps from the web, espionage, and malware programs are installed on unprotected machines. The input that the user enters on the device, such as a password, a PIN Code, or any other sensitive data can be intercepted by these programs.
Preventive steps: Install an antivirus program by downloading packages from reputable sites as a general rule to shield your devices from such malware programs. A good antivirus program, such as anti-malware from Kaspersky, AVG, Avast, and others enables you to schedule scans to run automatically for you and delete any bad code it finds, keeping the device secure.
Attacks by “Man-In-The-Middle”
Man-in-the-middle attacks, as their name suggests, take place when an attacker secretly transmits and, possibly, modifies the communication between two entities who believe they are speaking directly to one another. Serious thefts of valuable information and cash may result.
Preventive steps: To find these flaws in mobile payments and obtain a compliance solution to solve the problem, businesses can employ mobile security solutions like Appknox or MobSF. The free security analysis for mobile apps that the solutions we just mentioned are offering look not only for man-in-the-middle threats but also for all the major dangers that mobile enterprises are currently facing.
When User Logins Lack Strong Authentication
You can easily encounter such a situation when your account with, say, one of the food shopping websites gets accessed by someone else, resulting in charges being made to your account. This incident is a typical problem in the mobile payment ’arena’ when thieves enter user accounts to steal data or just make purchases, leaving the victim with a substantial financial loss and the company with severe brand damage.
Preventive steps: Businesses should exercise extreme caution when handling user login information and stringent security precautions when validating accounts each time a user makes a purchase. It is possible to utilize security measures like account validation using an OTP via email or phone number.
Theft of the Gadget, Physically
“That transfer was not made by me because my phone was snatched“. Not unusual to hear, is it? One in 10 smartphone owners experience phone threats, and 12% of them have had their accounts compromised by fraudulent charges. Fraudsters may try to obtain your card details or use them to purchase goods and services if you do not immediately block your m-payment subscription after losing your device.
Preventive steps: Businesses give up convenience in favor of security precautions. The option to automatically fill in user information during login, including for payment cards, is typically retained. In the event that the device is stolen, this makes the user information vulnerable to hackers. Businesses must walk a tight line between user convenience and security and take precautions to keep user data safe even in the event that the device is physically stolen. A great approach may be to provide a one-time password by email or text message to confirm the payments. Businesses can also instruct customers on how to protect their payment information.
Conclusion
Companies from around the world are starting to accept mobile payments due to advantages including accepting payments anywhere you are and enhancing the overall customer experience, irrespective of their size or industry. However, there are drawbacks to mobile payments, most notably security issues.
So, what to do? To ensure that accepting mobile payments is the appropriate move for your company, small business owners should carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of doing so before beginning.
