The first of the three mobile payments are the proximity payment systems that use a point-of-sale tool that involves the participating merchants. Examples of such merchants include Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. The second is the branded proximity payment system which involves making payments at only one select merchant’s store. The third, a P2P payment, involves making payments between users of a certain app. Essentially, the different forms of mobile payments vary in the ways that allow users to make payments. Millennials are most proficient with using mobile payments.
Not only are they three times more likely to use mobile payments than previous generations but an approximate 20% of millennials use mobile payments frequently when compared to the 6% that use these payments and are aged over forty-five. This is likely because they are able to effectively make financial transactions with only their phones and do not have to rely on alternative ways of payments such as checks. While mobile payment giants like Apple Pay have up to 22 million users, individuals who actually frequently utilize the tools are few. This is likely a result of stores being slow to adopt NFC-enabled technology while users have not found digital wallets particularly more useful than physical credit or debit cards. Essentially, many merchant stores do not install the Apple software or acquire NFC technology which does not persuade users to use their digital wallets.
Zelle is a digital payment service that is able to make instant payments between banking accounts of users through either phone numbers or email addresses. Because Zelle is deeply integrated with a number of traditional banking services such as write transfers and global transactions, their services take only moments when compared to the usual one business day-long transfers of regular banks. It was an appropriate response to the domination of digital payments that have overtaken many traditional banking services.