(Part of the ongoing WISENET Series)
If you can't remember the last time you were without your cell phone, but you can remember your embarrassment when you forgot your wallet, you're a good candidate for a mobile wallet. What's a mobile wallet and where can you get one? Well, get in line. While all over Japan and Korea, people are waving their telephones over reader pads to pay for everything that you could pay for with cash, checks, or credit cards, we in the U.S. are pretty much still waiting. Even in the developing world mobile banking is allowing cash to travel as quickly as a text message to pay for all kinds of things. By now you've guessed that mobile banking is intended to replace your wallet with your cell phone (which for those of us who are trying to downsize our purses is reason enough to consider the option). For mobile payments to safely and securely catch on in the U.S., consumers, banks, merchants, and carriers must work together. I'll be blogging on this subject for a bit, so tune in and join in the discussion, as I look forward to learning from you as well.