American Express Says Greater Cooperation Needed on Mobile Payments

Many of the nation’s top credit card lenders are now attempting to develop systems that allow consumers to make credit card payments using their smartphones, but an executive from one of these companies believes that consumer adoption won’t become reality unless there is greater cooperation within the industry.

Dan Schulman, American Express president of enterprise growth, recently spoke at a conference about the importance of cooperation between not only financial institutions, but also tech companies including wireless service providers, when it comes to developing a mobile credit card payment system for smartphones, according to a report from the tech news site CNET. In particular, he stressed the importance of developing open platforms such as American Express’s offering, Serve, which allows users to link any credit card or banking account, and works on any device regardless of operating system.

“All of us need to play together,” Schulman said during his keynote address at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications show, according to the site. “All of us have strengths and capabilities we bring to the table. … This represents a fundamental shift. It’s clear mobile and commerce are on a collision course. By partnering together, we can take that vision and turn it into reality.”The concept of consumers using their smartphones and other similar devices to make credit card purchases is being pursued by a number of companies, the report said. Most notably, Google launched its Wallet program – which allows consumers to use a smartphone enabled with near-field communications technology to make a credit card purchase – earlier this year. But more widespread adoption will take more work for both lenders and tech companies. Currently, only one smartphone on the market – the Spint Nexus S 4G – comes with NFC capabilities embedded. A number of other companies are also working on their own mobile payment systems, though those are only in the testing stages at best.

Consumer adoption is considered to be the biggest hurdle mobile credit card payments will face in the next few years, as the technology already exists and only has to become more widespread. However, some estimates have said that the mobile payment industry could be worth as much as $44 billion annually within the next few years.

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