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Mobile payments are still in the initial phase. While Apple Pay and Google Pay continue to grow at a sustained rate, only a small percentage of consumers use them compared to credit cards and other established retail payment options.
So, with the competition still to be maintained, the industry is ripe for interruptions through blockchain technology and distributed registers, but only until such a process is made easy and fast as the use of the methods of incumbent payment.
A global payment acceptance platform, Beam, combines mobile phones and blockchain technology to provide a way to provide that ease of use and speed required for retail payments. And the company believes it is the right time to introduce an alternative solution for mobile payments.
"There are examples where adoption has been less slow", said the co-founder and CEO of Beam Serdar Nurmammedov. "In China, 90% of consumers use WeChat as payment for offline purchases." Take a seat like the United Arab Emirates, where the penetration rate of the phone is much higher than the average at 228%, you will find higher rates for 39. Adoption of mobile payments For example, in Dubai, we have seen consumers willing to pay using their mobile devices if they are motivated to do so.There, traders have managed to eliminate the cost of processing payments on the Beam network altogether. . "
So, why does this have to exist? What's wrong with the old way to pay for products in the store?
The current retail economy is full of inefficiencies. According to studies, $ 4.5 trillion of value are extracted and wasted in the global retail ecosystem by incumbent intermediaries.
Above: Source: McKinsey & Company (2017) 12 Global Payments 2017: Between rapid changes, Rising trajectory, Page 11 and Group M (2017) This year, next year – Forecast for average and Worldwide marketing, pages 2 and 21
The idea of Beam is to change the way we approach mobile payments. Through its platform, customers are rewarded for the purchase of everyday products through their phone. For example, Beam was the first app to allow users in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to pay for their cars' fuel.
Beam's technical network now operates more than 400,000 stores worldwide with over 5,000 stores operating on three continents. Beam has already processed over $ 250 million of payments for retailers like Carrefour, Costa Coffee, Aldo, Tommy Hilfiger and others.
And it works the same way as any other mobile payment solution. Beam integrates with POS systems (point of sale) to process transactions on behalf of its dealers. Every payment on the Beam platform acquires transactional data points and each party legitimately owns its data.
"Credit card terminals process card transactions and work with Apple and Android Pay," said Nurmammedov. "Beam integrates natively with POS systems (directly at the machine level) and with credit card terminals.We also provide merchant apps to process Beam transactions.Finally, they can also use a web browser to process Beam transactions. "
Beam plans to completely remove the POS from the process.
"In the long run, we want to eliminate the need for credit card terminals altogether, something that Apple and Android Pay can not do," said Nurmammedov. "This is not in the interest of traditional buyers, as they generate an average of $ 600 per credit card terminal every two years by hiring these devices to merchants." We want to eliminate this so that merchants can save on unnecessary 20th century. "
Beam is not limited to NFC for the processing of mobile payments.
"We are agnostic to the method of identifying the customer at the point of sale", said Nurmammedov. "We can use NFC, Bluetooth or even QR codes displayed on the customer's POS or telephone We implement the most suitable solution for the environment and the territory in which we launch Beam.Today, in Australia, Sweden and United Arab Emirates, we use even the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon. "
The Beam model provides channels of engagement visibility to which the retail value chain sometimes has problems. In effect, consumers are given control of their data and the exchange of such data by value provides the retail value chain with real-time access to insights. Using data acquired in payment conversations, technology service providers become incentivized to act on those insights that, in turn, help both business brands and distributors.
Beam's growth is based on providing an incentive to try an alternative payment model. [19659004] "We invite local partners and other network participants, such as issuing apps and POS companies, to join and start generating revenue," said Nurmammedov. "The more on board, the more the system becomes for everyone, in order to accelerate the rate of adoption in all the markets where Beam is launched, we will eliminate the minimum contribution amount of 2% and we will offer processing commissions payment to all merchants in the Beam network, while the global average of 2% or 3% of payment processing fees may seem a low number on its own, when net processing fees are applied to the net profit of the merchant, commissions increase up to 30%. "
a long way to go before mobile payments really take off, regardless of whether that market is driven by Apple, Google or Beam, but one thing is certain: smartphone payment solutions are here to stay.
payments will become omnipresent and money will be redundant, "said Nurmammedov." For Beam, we are creating a platform to go beyond payments alone. Gathering all those involved in a transaction and removing intermediaries. In this way, the benefits created by each purchase can be passed on to those who made it possible. For example, through predictive planning, overproduction can be reduced to a minimum, waste management can be improved and a more personalized level of customer rewards will be available. The social impact will be on a level we have never seen before. "
