Swipers, No Swiping: Mobile Commerce Battle Heats Up

That Dora-esque complaint could be the battle cry from merchants fed up with paying a substantial fee to the credit card companies in return for carrying their card-swiping and transactional business.

The mobile payments market could reach $618 billion by 2016, according to consulting firm Edgar, Dunn & Co., and the battle is heating up. 

Google has partnered with MasterCard and Citigroup to have the Nexus S Android smartphone, developed with Samsung, embedded with near-field communication (NFC) technology to enable purchases with a wave of the device across readers at the point-of-sale or check-out.

It’s the next territorial imperative for m-commerce as the financial-services, technology and telecom industries craft strategies and devices to get more of consumer spending via smartphones which are virtually transforming into electronic wallets.Continue reading...