7 Pivoting Payments Strategies
March 4, 2016 10:30 AM
Diego Schtutman
The payments industry changes fast, and a business model that was viable just two years ago may be obsolete today. Some companies are making major updates to their strategies to stay ahead of these developments.
Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Facebook's earlier strategy for payments was based around purchasing items that would be delivered through its platform, such as in-app purchases for games like Farmville. Its newest approach is to enable partners , with the most notable being an integration with Uber.
Walmart
Walmart has never married itself to a single payment system. The mega-retailer behind the Bluebird Amex card and the Merchant Customer Exchange CurrentC wallet is now urging its customers to move money through its proprietary Walmart Pay app.
Square Cash
Square Cash debuted as a purely P-to-P system with few features and no direct ties to other Square products. But in time, the company has steadily transformed Square Cash into a purely digital retail payments platform.
Parking Payments
In-car mobile payments are a tough sell. Motorists are not supposed to stare at their phones while driving, and many consumers fear that using a phone at the gas station is a fire hazard. To overcome these obstacles, companies like Parking Panda are moving payments to an app that resides in the car's dashboard.
MoneyGram
MoneyGram seems to be going against the current in offering a plastic card to customers of its money transfer service. The MoneyGram Plus card functions more like an ID card than a payment card, speeding up the overall process for the company's most frequent customers.
Wolfe, Daniel
Coin
Coin is one of several companies that wanted to modernize the payment card by embedding a computer that could function as a multi-account mobile wallet. But as the market shifts past plastic, Coin saw a need to partner up with MasterCard to transition to wearable payments.
Sionic Mobile
Sionic Mobile has made many changes to its offering over the years. Its product has been a mobile rewards app for other wallets, a mobile commerce platform for banks , and a mobile authentication system . Its most recent reinvention turns the product into a data-driven marketing app .
