One thing is clear–if you’re going to sell something, you’re going to need to take money. And you’ve got plenty of options when it comes to taking money: cash, check, credit cards…but the farther you get from cash, the more complex it will get. Thankfully, there are plenty of options when it comes to taking payments via credit card.
Where formerly, bulky point of sale systems were required to get the money from people’s credit card numbers to your bank account, many systems are now as easy as plugging a dongle into your iPhone (or other devices) and going from there, and options for other systems are also cropping up. You’ve even seen a couple of them right here, like Intuit.
One of the biggest new players in the mobile payment market is quite clearly Visa. With stakes in Square, Fundamo, Isis, and a variety of others, Visa has its fingers in a whole lot of different pies. Other companies aren’t taking this lying down–Google, Facebook, and American Express have all moved to make their marks in the mobile payment stakes. Right now, though, the clear frontrunner is Visa.
And what this means to you is that, while you have a lot of options right now, you may not have those options much longer. There’s a reasonable chance that Visa will come to dominate the world of mobile payments by virtue of the sheer number of systems it’s working with. Still, though, there are plenty of competitors entering the fray, and if you’re interested in keeping it that way, patronizing them will be a huge help.
You’ll have a variety of options to take mobile payments, and many of them are as simple as a plug-in for your smartphone. It doesn’t even matter if your smartphone is iOS or Android–you’ll have that same variety regardless of your operating system of choice. Which one is right for you? That’s a question only you can answer. But one thing is for certain: you won’t want for choices.
Related keywords: Mobile payment, Visa, Android, iOS