Gloabl mobile payments to rise 70 per cent in 2009: Gartner

28 May 2009

Mumbai: The mobile payment industry is set to expand steadily with the number of mobile payment users expected to rise by 70.4 per cent to 73.4 million in 2009, up from 43.1 million in 2008.

In a new study, technology researcher Gartner predicts that the number of mobile payment users will reach more than 190 million in 2012, or over 3 per cent of total mobile users worldwide, at which level it will be considered a "mainstream" business.

''Momentum in the mobile payment market gathered further in 2008 with a number of high-profile launches of mobile money transfer services in multiple markets, participation of major global institutions in near-field communication (NFC) payment trials, as well as new payment solutions entering the market,'' says Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.

''However, at the same time, security concerns, an inadequate 'ecosystem' and undefined areas in banking regulations remain challenges for mobile payment,'' shen adds.

Gartner defines a mobile payment as paying for a product or service using mobile technology such as a short message service (SMS), wireless application protocol (WAP), unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) and NFC.

It includes transactions that use banking instruments such as cash, bank accounts or debit and credit cards, as well as noncarrier stored value accounts, such as travel cards, gift cards or Paypal. It does not include transactions that use mobile operators' billing systems, such as purchase of mobile content or telebanking by mobile to the service center via an interactive voice response (IVR) system.