The Mobile Money Network™ Blog

Green light for Project Oscar 

Last week the major UK network operators – Vodafone, O2 (Telefonica UK) and EE (Everything Everywhere) received the go-ahead from the European Commission for their mobile payments joint venture (JV). Project Oscar intends to provide consumers with a streamlined way to buy products and services via mobile. The initiative creates a single contact point for media agencies and retailers to market and sell their goods to opted-in consumers both in store and online.

The shareholders have said that they are committed to make the JV services open to all. If this proves to be the case, the MMN expects the move to stimulate innovation and healthy competition.

Store tries on multichannel for size 

Meanwhile, the gap between offline and online shopping is narrowing on the High Street. Marks and Spencer’s opened a superstore in Cheshire last week which offers customers multichannel shopping.

Most large retailers have stores to test concepts and with their scale, it’s right that M&S is flexing its muscle in this direction.

Enabling assistants to access detailed, quality data and converse with customers on is great. Can M&S expand its demographic using technology? MMN has already helped Thornton’s reach a younger demographic by enabling them to purchase their products via instant mobile checkout.

In-store connectivity

M&S are following other supermarkets by introducing free Wi-Fi in their UK stores. MMN believes connectivity is the cornerstone of a good in-store shopping experience.

In-store Wi-Fi helps differentiate from the competition and increases footfall. But implementation for the sake of it could lose you customers; especially if they use that connectivity to find products elsewhere.

The key is to add to consumers’ encounter with a free or useful service, within a branded environment.

Improving marketing one pixel at a time

Marketing magazine The Drum has invited a bevy of creative digital leaders to discuss the impact of mobile on brands. One commented: ‘strategy needs to move away from reaching consumers when they’re technically available, to when consumers are behaviourally ready to engage.’

We think smartphones open up a massive canvas for one-to-one marketing: the ability to exercise rich data, anywhere and everywhere via a two-way conversation. But if targeted mobile marketing feels invasive, users will switch off.

It’s got to be done right. When data is linked together cleverly, based on factors such as ‘where I am’, ‘who I am’ and local events, mobile offers almost unrivalled marketing opportunities. By linking all available consumer data to create contextual insight, you can provide targeted, useful information at the point of need. Consumers are likely to welcome this and, importantly, act on it immediately.

For more news and opinion about mobile payments, follow @theMMN on Twitter.

If you’d like to get in touch, please call us on 020 7079 3930.

Follow the MMN company page on Linked In.

 

 

 

 

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Retail Week’s George MacDonald on new ways of buying
We were delighted to chat to George MacDonald, Executive editor of Retail Week about SimplyTap’s current Empire magazine ad campaign with HMV. The innovative ad allows consumers to make instant off the page purchases using QR Codes. George says: ‘New and more convenient ways of buying are increasingly important to retailers. They’re becoming interested in mobile and campaigns such as this because it gives them the means to grab more of spend.’

Square step up mobile retail innovation
We’re big fans of innovation at the MMN and are fascinated by what Jack Dorsey is doing at Square. He’s trying to break through the complex value chain which is involved in payments. He wants to have complete control over the process by owning both ends – the customer’s handset and the in-store till. It’s almost like an Apple model for the High Street. On the downside, trying to take on the world is inevitably slow and you’ve got to displace other businesses in the value chain like NCR. Till packages are quite complex and it’s telling that Square are only really making headway in coffee shops and restaurants. Supermarkets and department stores add extra complexity to the electronic point of sale with discount prices, vouchers and stock availability. Can Dorsey make his business truly attractive to medium and larger retailers? He’s obviously had great success with Square so far and the market has followed with companies like iZettle springing up. Can Dorsey run fast enough without everyone else catching up?

Why Apple aren’t dominating mobile payments… yet
Someone who won’t be in the race against Square just yet is Apple. There’s been speculation in the media about why they’ve been reticent about their mobile payment plans in the face of ambitious projects from Google and Microsoft. Apple is an enormous company which is principally a hardware business. None of its current revenue streams are impacted by it not moving forward into mobile payments right now and it’s become so large that it doesn’t have to innovate in non-core areas anymore. Apple has the luxury of being able to sit there knowing that it has hundreds of millions of customers using its technology and hang fire until the right moment. Why should it chuck a fortune away on mobile payments at this stage when it can buy the most successful business when things are more established? It’s a different story for banks and payment companies who need to innovate because their current revenue streams could be impacted by developments in the industry.

Networks to join forces on an open mobile payments platform
Talking of which, Project Oscar, a multi-carrier common UK mobile payment platform was meant to launch in time for the Olympics. However the FT reported this week that it could get the regulatory nod this summer. The operators have chosen not to comment on the project but on paper, it’s a really exciting development. We know historically with things like mobile data, that the temptation will be to try and own the entire environment. However if an open platform is put in place there could be proper innovation, proper consumer value and proper value for everyone in the eco-system. It could provide us with a step change in the growth of mobile payments and mobile money in the UK.

An m-commerce solution for small retailers
A study this week by Onepoll found that small retailers are moving slowly in their uptake of m-commerce. This isn’t a surprise – these guys are finding it tough: they’re worried about getting customers through the door and earning revenue. They know mobile is going to be big but they want to find out about it in a low risk way without having to invest in it heavily. We’re absolutely primed to introduce small businesses to the mobile retail environment. Through our common platform SimplyTap they can join other retailers and access new customers and channels in which to sell their products.

Visa look at how mobile payments will help all retailers
This week our MD John Milliken presented MMN to retailers at Visa’s When Worlds Collide event in London. More will be revealed about Visa’s plans for the future in next week’s post but it wasn’t a surprise that they emphasised mobile payment as a priority. Retailers of all sizes can accelerate their shift to mobile with Visa’s support of NFC and MMN’s instant mobile checkout, market places and network.

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Welcome to The Mobile Money Network blog. Rather than just using this space to talk about the exciting things we’re getting up to, we’ll also be providing insightful opinion and thought leadership about the business of mobile commerce. Things are developing rapidly in this world and we’ll be analysing how these changes affect retailers, banks and multi-channel media companies.

The story so far

If you want to know more about our business then watch Mobile Money Network: The Story So Far. Featuring contributions from our chairman Sir Stuart Rose and Retail Week‘s George MacDonald, it serves as an introduction to the mobile payments revolution which is changing the face of retail right now. This year, 35% of retail traffic will be via mobile and by 2020, Visa expects 50% of transactions to run through mobile devices.

The Economist on QR Codes 

QR Codes have been failing to become the next big thing in the UK for a while, but according to The Economist, they’re finally taking off. One of the reasons they haven’t worked is that consumers need an incentive to scan, be that a competition, giveaway or the opportunity to buy. The feature crucially ignores what happens when you monetize QR codes. Purchasing with a QR code turbo-charges the offering and gives the consumer an instant hit.

Booming in-store smart phone usage

Mobile Commerce Daily says we’re addicted to using our smartphones and 33% of us would apparently rather play with our phones than have sex! When it comes to shopping, the figures are even higher. A report from Tradedoubler found that 42% of smartphone owners in Europe are going online in stores to check prices, read reviews and get product information. The next step for retailers is to capitalise on the smartness of these phones by offering the consumer a virtual shop assistant on their mobile. While consumers won’t want to download an app for every retailer in the land, our Simply Tap app can offer this service, and undoubtedly, the virtual assistant will be better informed than its human counterpart.

Mobile banking snack culture

This week a Forrester Report said that US banks were spending one third of their digital budget on mobile this year. We’re surprised the figure isn’t higher. In the UK, mobile banking has become an accepted channel, in fact NatWest customers are making more log-ins via their mobiles than their computers. They’re using their devices in different ways to interact with banks – mobiles use is characterised by ‘snacking’ for example, checking balances, making payments on the move, while bigger screens are used for more in-depth tasks. The upshot is that consumers are becoming more in-touch with their finances and building a familiar and trusting relationship with mobile banking and payments.

PayPal can go further

One of the benefits of mobile payments is that you won’t have to remember to take your wallet out with you. This week PayPal released a video showing how much easier it will be to go shopping in Aurora stores and Pizza Express with a mobile phone. While we’re all for mobile payment iniatives, we’re keen to look at the whole retail process. For the retailer, payment comes right at the end of a journey which includes marketing and getting the right consumers and products through the door. To develop the mobile payment space and benefit consumers and retailers, we need to innovate at each stage of the chain.

Media coverage

Mobile Money Network was in the media last week when our Simply Tap/Thornton’s Best of British offer was mentioned by Lorraine on her daytime ITV show.

We’re also gaining attention in social media land with the innovative Virtual Vinyl Store which has been produced from a collaboration between Simply Tap, Liam Gallagher’s fashion label Pretty Green and Universal music. As well as offering music lovers the chance to purchase classic vinyl and participate in a music quiz, we’re offering a great trip to see the Stone Roses play in Japan.

In an incisive piece in yesterday’s Guardian, our MD, John Milliken, called for retailers to respond quickly to the fundamental shift in consumer behaviour that is being caused by mobile phones. The article has been creating some noise on social, and is definitely worth a read and a RT!

Out and about

This week our team are attending Etail Europe and the British Retail Consortium’s Retail Symposium. Please come and say hello if you’re there too. We’re keen to exchange information and ideas across the industry, and actively encourage you to pass our blog onto your colleagues. If you want to contribute, please post a comment or contact us. Follow our journey here or @theMMN for daily hits.

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