Although a lot of the innovations and new technology consumers hear about tend to go from being in the pipeline to being a pipe dream, mobile banking and payment technology is one they can rightfully get excited about.
This is according to industry players, who predict a snowballing take-up of transactional technology centred on the cellphone - South Africans' favourite gadget. Many believe a cashless society has never been in clearer sight than it is today.
Big four bank First National Bank (FNB) yesterday announced a milestone in cardless services, with cardless cash withdrawals reaching the R2 billion mark in the four years since the service was introduced in 2011.
Yesterday also marked a decade since the advent of cellphone banking and four years since SA saw a sizeable surge (about 40%) in uptake of the cellphone-based banking technology.
According to World Wide Worx, 2011 was also the year transactional services became major components of cellphone banking services for the first time. Emerging mobile commerce transactions also appeared on the radar screen for the first time.
Since then - with a bound in activity last year - there have been several developments on the local front, from what was described as a land grab in mobile payment apps, to exporting home-grown mobile technology.
Progression path
Roan Murray, CEO of payment solutions company Switching House, says the proliferation of mobile in SA - and Africa at large - has created a "perfect landscape" for mobile payment ecosystems to be initiated and to facilitate financial inclusion and increased trade.
A recent MasterCard report shows SA is fast making major progress towards financial inclusion. In fact, according to the report, the country is on the same progression path as Italy, Russia, Poland, Brazil, China and Malaysia.
Inevitably, say industry experts, with progression and innovation, comes disruption. Trent McLelland, MD of one of SA's new mobile payment apps FlickPay, says market disruption happens when "you are solving a problem and can offer consumers and businesses something considerably better than what there is at the moment".
The problem mobile payment technology is solving, he says, is that of time. "We are speeding up the payment process considerably. Processing a [mobile payment] transaction can take a few seconds versus the up to two minutes waiting for a card machine to connect."
Then there is the ever-present threat of virtual and physical theft. McLelland says mobile technology is making payments much safer, as it eliminates the need to carry cash or to hand credit cards or credit card details to a stranger.
Vuyo Mpako, head of innovation and channel design at Standard Bank, says there is a definite and increasing shift from a reliance on hard cash and cards, to proximity-based and remote payments - largely thanks to the advent of smart devices and intuitive apps.
Get excited
Exciting times lie ahead for mobile banking solutions players, with consumer trust in cellphone technology increasing.
Mpako says consumers are no longer afraid of technology - and often demand it; sparking new innovations. "Remote payments are bridging the gap between proximity-based technology and traditional payment methods. Remote payments refer to any type of banking enabler such as WAP [wireless application protocol], SMS and apps, and it plays a big role in the lives of South Africans."
McLelland says South Africans are doing more and more on their mobile phones, from hailing a cab to checking when the next Gautrain arrives. "Why wouldn't we do the thing we do the most - paying for stuff?"
He says consumers are definitely trusting mobile payments more. "Our merchant partners know [mobile] is the future and they understand that it takes time to change people's behaviour. Our most successful merchants are the guys who don't have any credit card facilities."
Zazoo (formerly Net1 Mobile Solutions) MD Philip Belamant says the time for mobile payments is now. "From 2015 moving forward, we all need to be engaging with products that encourage us to interact with our handsets as part of the payment process - for both card not present and card present transactions - and I don't mean receiving a one-time PIN via SMS."
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