Comments on: P2P Mobile Payments and the Dinner Table Challenge

By: Cora

Cora — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:45:10 +0000

Venmo actually has iPhone and Android apps. Also works via sms but the majority of usage is through the apps.

By: Cora

Cora — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:45:10 +0000

Venmo actually has iPhone and Android apps. Also works via sms but the majority of usage is through the apps.

By: amanda peyton

amanda peyton — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:12:03 +0000

The banks are an interesting wild card here. While everyone will certainly watch what they are doing I am not super optimistic.

By: Michael Shafrir

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:36:45 +0000

Assbackwards and banks is a pretty fair bet, at least initially.

By: ceonyc

ceonyc — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:44:05 +0000

Or the fact that every bank is adding this functionality to their mobile apps… The question is whether or not they do it in an assbackwards way like only allowing you to pay other Chase or Citibank people.

By: amanda peyton

amanda peyton — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:43:00 +0000

That is a super interesting point - and I do think that generally technologies that closest to what people already know are the first ones to be mainstream-i-fied.

I had no idea that was how the original Bump technology worked, though it has always been hit-or-miss for me. Thanks for the info/link!

By: Michael Shafrir

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:33:59 +0000

If you believe that America is a late-adopter in this realm (as they were with SMS in general), the mobile banking activity in Africa suggests that SMS may be the ultimate winner here:

http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/...

Unless Bump has improved their technology, their service is a bit too wonky to be trusted with payments (unscientifically — their “bump” was actually both phones pinging the satellite then the satellite makes a best guess based on phones in proximity — not too reliable or scalable for payments).