The Top News in May for Mobile Payments

The Top News in May for Mobile PaymentsAs the month of May rapidly winds to a close, it’s evident that the past four weeks produced a bountiful array of major mobile payments news that not only confirmed the growth of this mammoth industry, but pointed to where this promising young growth market is headed.

Here are some of the top stories in mobile payments we’ve covered throughout the month of May.

We are paying for things in new ways; that much is clear. We’re paying for taxi rides using our Uber app, checking out personally tailored offers on Facebook, and downloading films to our Amazon Kindles — without ever pulling the plastic out of our wallets. Yet Ken Chenault plans to insure that American Express (AXP) remains in the center of every transaction.

According to the findings of a new report summary provided to MMW this week, the global market for trusted service management (TSM) has not quite lived up to expectations with the low level of near field communication (NFC) commercial deployments in the transportation sector.

The installed base of mPOS devices – driven by innovative industry leaders like Square and PayAnywhere – is set to increase fivefold over a five-year forecast period.

Starbucks may be a mobile-payments success story, but it’s one of just a few. An industry coalition is working to bring the approach to the rest of the retail sector (along with its side benefit of cutting down on swipe fees), but pulling it off may not be easy.

Will Apple be smart enough to strike while the iron is hot in mobile payments? Analysts at Morgan Stanley seem to think so. With marketers sensing the powerful opportunities latent in the prospective coupling of mobile marketing and NFC technology, a new report from Morgan Stanley is generating substantial buzz today.