9 Facts You Should Know About Mobile Payments

 
Technology is evolving at such a rapid speed that businesses need to keep pace or fall back. Mobile phones have contributed greatly towards enhancing the quality of our lives and mobile payments is an essential part of this. In this article, we look at how exactly they help securing our financial dimension.

1. Mobile payments are more secure

Safety and security are global concerns and mobile payments ensure precisely that. Mobile payments do away with the need of you having to take your wallet wherever you go.

2. They provide flexibility

Carrying cash has become not only an inconvenience but also a danger. Instead users now have the privilege of just tapping your mobile phones to complete transactions.

3. Mobile payments are growing globally

Many parts of the globe have little access to financial services, but 85% of the global population has mobiles. So payments through these phones are definitely on the path towards high growth

4. They help Economies Flourish

From transferring money to pay your utility bills to sending money home, mobile payments make transactions so much more smooth and streamlined. They also help rural economies by making micropayments possible.

5. NFC is the way of the future

A simple and secure technology solution, near field communications (NFC) helps businesses and consumers alike make faster, safer transactions. They’re called contactless payments because all you need to do is keep your NFC enabled phone near a suitable reader to make payments.

6. It’s already built into many phones

Many of the latest smart phones already have built in NFC chips, so adopting this technology is even more hassle-free. Just upgrade your phone or maybe get an NFC sticker for your present phone and you’re ready to make mobile payments.

7. NFC saves time and trouble

Whether you pay for your bus fare or for a movie show, NFC payments make the process so much faster that it’s already a trend that’s catching on everywhere.

8. They are easy to top-up

Whether you are online or at a mall, your mobile wallet can be topped up anywhere. Life’s so much more easier, isn’t it?

9. Mobile wallets make money transfers easier

Mobile wallets also allow you to send funds to your family and friends who may need money fast. In addition everything from electricity bills to parking fees can be paid by you, even if you are far from home.

How Mobile Apps Make Your Work Place Better

   
Mobile apps and smartphones have together brought about a 180 degree shift in the way data is accessed and shared at the workplace. Smartphones are already a part of the list of productivity tools in many businesses. A study by Forrester shows workers gathering about 13 per cent of information from their smartphones. This article looks at the different options mobile apps give you to help your business run better.

• Development options 

The growing demand for apps has given birth to the mobile development boom we are currently witness to. Though there are many options for building than before, the options fall into two distinct categories - off-the-shelf development and custom development.

• Custom-development

 Here, the company pays a development team or hires one in-house to create customized apps for its business. Often the best option for companies that look to build mission-critical native apps, this methodology of development however is expensive. As a result, most businesses, particularly the small ones, don't prefer them.

• Off-the-shelf development

 If you haven’t the budget or resources to build a custom app in-house or with a development team, you could look at purchasing off-the-shelf apps, albeit at a much lower cost. They can be used for email scheduling, data collection, CRM and so on.

Common mobile apps in enterprise workplace 

Here we give you a list of some common mobile apps used at the enterprise workplace.

• E-mail apps

These are among the basic and most commonly used apps in business mobile devices. E-mail apps enable e-mail usage on smartphones and tablets. Apparently 92% of information workers have an e-mail app on their smartphone according to a Forrester survey.

• Schedule planner apps 

These apps have a calendar that records events, reminding users of important discussions, meetings, etc. No less than 80% of information workers have calendar apps.

• Customer relationship management apps 

They manage and share interactions with customers, and increase your sales prospects by integrating sales, customer support and marketing information into a single, centralized database and software system.

• Service and support automation apps 

They enable you to capture using your mobile phone or tablet, real-time service information. They help you transfer it to back-end systems immediately via wireless connectivity. They also allow you to access this data instantly at any point of time.

• Near field communication apps

 Establish radio communication between two smartphones within a certain range.

• Financial apps 

Can access your financial data like payments, expenses, pending bills, customer accounts from your mobile phone. You can also use these to share or record the financial data whenever required.

What You Shouldn't Do When Devoloping A Mobile App

If you had a killer idea and wanted to make it actionable, you would be developing a mobile app to implement it. That’s the easiest way to ensure that you’re idea is visible, taken note of, and most importantly, put to use by millions. What you require is a clear plan, good strategy, proper programming structure and user friendly implementation. But there are pitfalls even for the trained. We look at some of them in this article.

1. Be very clear about your platform

Android, iOS, Windows....reading them back and forth? Well, just look at who you wanna target. If it’s the global market that you’re targeting, Android must be your choice. If you are looking at a US centric market, you could go for iOS. Either way, avoid ambiguity on the platform front. If you intend to launch it on both the platforms, know that your engineering costs will double accordingly.

2. Mobile is NOT web experience downsized

A majority of website owners do not focus on developing a mobile application that is optimized for all mobile platforms. All that they do is rely on responsive website features or consider that mobile app development should be done with just few necessary elements and features of a website.

3. Don’t confuse the Designer for the Developer

Whatever it is that the designer creates, it will have to go through a developer. It is important the design follows the functionality since we often find that apps where design dictates functionality inevitable fail.
For example, if you app has been planned to include a search box, but the designer might envision one with a type-ahead search that generates live results as the user types. This is a nice add-on, but could mean significant undertaking for the developer.

4. Avoid overlooking User experience

Say Apple and ask people what comes to their mind first. The reply would be its elegance/user experience. So, it’s important to know that a mobile user is more demanding and intuitive when it comes to UX. This is borne by the fact that 26% of the are opened only to be never used again and 48% are opened less than 10 times. Make sure you test your app with Craigslist or better find early beta testers.

5. The app won’t sell by itself

When your app goes live, thousands of competitors are going to look at it and use it. If you do not have a well planned strategy to increase visibility, you are only increase the risk of your app disappearing into oblivion.

This means you’ve got to market your app, identify trends and consumer demand with tools such as Xyologic and Google Trends. If you are looking at a wider market, you’ve got to make sure your app has features that the specific market demands.