The Million-Dollar Idea: Mobile Payments

By Yhordan Serpentini | January 24, 2022

In a previous blog, I emphasized different ways to help you come up with your million-dollar idea. One of the most important tips that I mentioned was to make sure your idea was solving a problem. I believe that this tip should be better analyzed in-depth, which is why I wanted to start a small blog series called “The Million-Dollar Idea,” where I would focus on several business trends that each have their own potential to develop into multi-million, or multi-billion, dollar ideas. I think being able to dissect and study why these trends are skyrocketing in popularity can be a great way for prospective entrepreneurs to create their own problem-solving, million-dollar idea! For today’s first blog in the series, I wanted to briefly take a look at one of the most popular trends on the market: mobile payments.

What Are Mobile Payments?

To summarize, mobile payments are basically new, digital transaction methods that can allow you to make a payment through your phone, rather than swiping or inserting your debit/credit, or paying traditionally with the quickly-dying paper money. Some of the most popular mobile payment apps on the market, that you might have also heard of, are Google Pay, Apple Pay, Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and Samsung Pay.

Why Are They Trending?

To put it simply, mobile payments are trending for a multitude of reasons. One of the most obvious reasons is that they are far more time-efficient than swiping a card, or paying traditionally. Making a payment has been easier and faster than ever before. Want to make a transaction and never step foot in a store? Want to pay for something by simply having your phone recognize your face instead of typing your pin or a password? Want to pay a friend back at the click of a button? Want to save so much time paying in line by simply pressing your phone, which you already were likely on while waiting, against the card reader? If you answered yes to any of these, then you already have your answer on why these payment methods have become so popular. I have said before, and will say it once more: convenience is key!!!

Another reason why mobile payments are trending on the market, though slightly more complicated, is mainly because of the bias of choosing something digital over something physical. As I mentioned many times in some of my previous blogs, we are currently living in the digital era where everything—and I mean literally almost everything—is now made to be conveniently accessible through your phone or computer. People will want more digital options to help decrease the overwhelming number of physical items they must carry with them on a daily basis; mobile payments have made it so that a wallet is now one less item.

This is why it is important that your business(es), or future business(es), must conform to the rapidly-expanding digital world. Your idea has a higher chance of gaining traction if it is digitized in some way—even if it is something as simple as advertising on social media, or having a business website—because the digital world is what everyone currently finds most convenient.

The Million-Dollar Idea: Mobile Payments