What’s a Mobile Wallet ?

Recently, I happen to attend Mobile Commerce on March 13, 2014 in Movenpick. Following are some of reports which are covered on Pakistani Social Media Scene.

http://propakistani.pk/2014/03/13/abacusconsulting-sap-sponsor-mobile-commerce-conference-2014/
http://propakistani.pk/2013/03/14/abacusconsulting-sponsors-mobile-commerce-conference-in-karachi/
http://www.dramasfun.com/latest-news/31005-mobile-commerce-conference-2014-in-karachi.html
(Mr. Ashraf Mahmood’s Speech about Mobile Commerce)
http://www.sbp.org.pk/about/speech/Governors/Mr.Ashraf.Mahmood.Wathra/2014/Mobile-Comm-BAlfalah-14-Mar-14.pdf

The panelists were Department head of Mobile Financial Services, namely, Mobilink’s Mobi Cash and Warid’s Time Pey to name a few. There was a small discussion of what is a Mobile Wallet. One of them was saying that make an Application (App) for a Bank’s Credit / Debit Card; that ‘s your Mobile Wallet. REALLY.

In IT Industry, one is always amazed about how a Person could start beating around the bush, without ever distilling the core concept of it.

Wouldn’t be a Mobile Wallet be something as simple as a Wallet that we (MEN) keep in our pants or women keep in their purses / cluches ? Wouldn’t a Mobile Wallet be as simple as a Wallet and it’s purpose ?

Let’s distill what’s a wallet, shall we. A wallet has CASH, our Credit Cards, Our Debit Cards, and some loyalty cards that we choose to. At the time of Transaction, we decide to choose, whether we do it via Cash, Credit / Debit Card and use Loyalty points along with it.

Would a Mobile wallet be any different ? I do think not.

A Mobile Wallet has to be an App, not tied to a Specific BANK. It has to be an app, which can hold CASH, AKA Credits points like Mobi Cash / Time pey / Etcetera. Then it has to have the ability to store Credit Cards / Debit Cards (digitally encrypted) in them. Plus it would be having some loyalty point system like Olaround (http://www.olaround.me/), or recently OntheGo.pk (http://onthego.pk/)  (if they start Loyalty Programs).

So at the time of Transaction, all the person would be doing is choosing which Credit / Debit Card / Credit points to use and if possible, can the loyalty points be used with it or redeem something along with that transaction. That Transaction could be done via NFC, or by scanning QR Codes (like what Olaround does). That’s all there is to it. Nothing complex.

THAT, would be a MOBILE WALLET.
Even Google Wallet has similar views (http://www.google.com.pk/wallet/). And we have a Google Wallet App too.

So What I am saying is that Mobile Wallet is a very simple concept, Yet its implementation is complex and has to be done by some third party processors not associated with one single bank.

I would be waiting for further comments.