Witness the Oncoming Banking Revolution via Blockchain and Mobile Payments

 Over the past two years, both established companies and new startups have been investing heavily in improving their blockchain and mobile payment infrastructure. A blockchain is defined as a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of data records secured from tampering and revision. The benefits of increased security and near-instantaneous availability of funds will radically change how we currently view online mobile payments.

    There are four major reasons why blockchain will revolutionize mobile payments:

1.  Increased mobile payment security
2.  Instant access to funds
3.  Expansion of digital wallets
4.  Reduction in the cost of remittance fees

    Mobile payments have often been considered vulnerable given the exponential growth of mobile payment fraud especially fraud and duplicate charging. The blockchain has the ability to reduce, if not eliminate, this vulnerability since transactions are logged into a permanent ledger that is impervious to tampering. In addition, the distributed record of financial transfers and extremely secure user accounts will provide a significant barrier to any cybercriminal activity.

    The second benefit of blockchain technology is the near-instantaneous availability of funds following a financial transfer. Currently, Bitcoin transfers often take several minutes to go through while other mobile payments transfers take several hours to finalize. The blockchain will revolutionize this payment transfer through use of significantly faster networks. By the time you finish reading this sentence, the funds transferred from one account to another will be fully available.

    Another benefit of the blockchain is the near-elimination of almost all other methods of payments. Check payments were all-but-eliminated with the invention of the ATM. In the same way, the blockchain will complete the transformation to a nearly cashless society relegating cash and credit cards as obsolete relics. With the ability to use multiple signature methods for verifying purchases and the promise of a reduction of fees on online purchases through enhanced security, the digital wallet will rapidly become the payment method of choice in today's economy.

    The last significant benefit of blockchain is significantly reduced remittance fees. As reported by theWorld Bank, the cost of sending remittances was 7.37% as of December 2015. Blockchain promises to greatly reduce if not eliminated transfer and processing fees providing a significant economic benefit to its users.

    Blockchain and mobile payments promises to change the way we currently think about online payments through enhanced security, instant fund availability and reduced fees. In the years to come, blockchain stands to become the payment method of choice across the globe.

How Mobile Wallets Help Boost Customer Loyalty

Beyond Philosophy describes customer loyalty as "the result of the consistently positive emotional experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction and perceived value of an experience, which includes the products or services.'

Customer loyalty is an essential part of a successful business. If it is handled correctly, business owners will maintain an audience that is irreplaceable. 

Mobile wallets, virtual systems that allow customers to pay with their phones, are one way that entrepreneurs are making that happen. 

Here are four ways that mobile wallets boost customer loyalty: 

1. Increased sales. By using mobile wallets, customers are more likely to return for more transactions and be loyal to a particular business. 

2. Unique identity. Mobile wallets allow businesses to separate themselves from competition. They give customers an inside look on what a business is all about. 

3. Lower costs. It is less expensive to handle transactions with the use of mobile wallets. By making your transaction history electronic, business owners can eliminate the middle man and focus on what really matters. 

4. Improved customer service. With the use of mobile wallets, business owners are able to establish an improved customer service. Customers are able to store coupons, discounts, and loyalty rewards. This will make customers feel better about their contribution to the company and the service that they will receive. 

Customer loyalty is the result of positive experience and satisfaction from a particular business. One way that business owners are making this happen is with the use of mobile wallets. Mobile wallets allow customers to pay and store transactions with their mobile devices. By doing this, entrepreneurs are able to establish increased sales, a unique identity, lower costs, and increased customer service. If you would like to learn more about mobile wallets, follow us. 

Branded mobile wallets help retailers boost customer loyalty

Although the Uber moment for banks arrived last year, there is still time for them to create new revenue streams, or face the consequences of not doing so.  Decreasing revenue and increasing costs are forcing banks, including big names such as Bank of America and BNY, to lay off employees and automate functions. This tactic of slashing costs can be helpful up to a point, but what about exploiting new markets and technologies to create business and healthier balance sheets?

The mobile payments space is full of competition, with upstarts like Square and titans like Google and Apple all vying for a slice of the market. However, it still presents growth opportunities for banks. Customers want an app that allows them easy access to products they like, which Apple, Google, and Square have all failed to deliver.

On the other hand, Starbucks has enjoyed the rewards that come with their successful mobile payment and reward application. By building a product that works for both their customers and for the company, they have seen enormous success, with 21% of all Starbucks transactions involving their loyalty program. Their loyalty program is easy to use, and encourages spending, meaning those on both sides of the exchange leave happy.

How can banks create an equally tangible and profitable product? Banks have access to huge, proprietary data about their customers’ spending habits, which some have begun using to offer customers more personalized experiences and recommendations. When combined with partnerships with outside retailers and firms, this data could be used to drive spending and create customer satisfaction on a larger scale than the loyalty program for a single company.

Of course, banks are not technology companies by nature, and it requires a huge amount of work to bring a viable and useful product to market. Netclearance Systems Inc can help, with its existing technologies and experience in the fast-growing space of mobile payments. Its services, such as mBeaconPay, can help ensure client satisfaction with mobile banking apps by refining existing recommendation technologies. In doing so, Netclearance can contribute to client retention and creation.

Branded Mobile Wallets Help Banks Retain Their Customers’ Loyalty

According to Pew Research Center, two-thirds of Americans now own smart phones. For 7% of Americans, that is the only way they access the Internet outside of work. And it's more true of younger adults, 15% of them, than for the older population, who use personal computers or laptops.

Therefore, it's only logical that major brands want smart phone users to use their mobile wallets. Starbucks is the clear winner and model for success that other companies wish to emulate. This article in Mobile Payments Today wonders whether discount stores such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl's can achieve the same success.

Starbucks launched its mobile wallet in late 2012, and now processes 21% of their orders through it. 16 million customers use it.

According to Financial Brand technology companies such as Google and Samsung want a piece of this huge market as well.

And banks and credit unions are not ready to yield the financial services sector either, especially since they are rolling out ATMs that use mobile phones instead of plastic cards to make transactions.

However, for consumer companies, using a tech company's mobile payment solution is not optimal. Wal-Mart wants its customers loyal to Wal-Mart Pay, not Apple Pay or Android Pay. Nor do they want customers to think of Bank of America or their local credit union.

Just settling up the branded mobile wallet app on their phone engages the customer with the brand name. Decades of advertising and marketing experience has proven the more consumers think or interact with a brand, the more loyal they become to it. It's the principle of consistency. After installing the Wal-Mart mobile wallet on their phone they're more likely to go there than to Target on their next shopping trip.

15% of American consumers used a mobile wallet in the last half of 2015. 22% expect to do so in the first half of 2016. Obviously, this market cannot be ignored.

The consumer brands have one advantage the banks and tech companies can't match. Like Starbucks, they can attach a loyalty rewards program to reward them for shopping at that store and for using the mobile wallet. Therefore, they can feel virtuous for saving money in the future.

It's also likely that in the future consumer brands will partner with technology companies and banks, as Starbucks has done with Chase Pay, because some consumers may prefer to use one wallet to handle all their payments.

Netclearance Systems Inc offers turnkey wireless sensor and mBeaconPay technologies that enable both merchants and banks to bring out their own mobile wallets for their customers. Because mobile wallets do help retain customer loyalty, consumer businesses and banks need to offer their own branded options before their customers begin using Google's Android Pay or Apple Pay.

How to Develop an Effective Mobile Loyalty Program with Smart Beacons

So you have decided to jump at the idea of starting a mobile loyalty program for your business, now what?  What are the next steps you should take?  How will you go about creating your program?  We shall provide answers to these questions for you now.

Come Up With a Plan

First answer the question, "will it be geared toward individual consumers or businesses?  This is an important factor to ponder.  You will need to tailor your program to the type of clients you are aiming to attract.  It is possible to cater to both, individuals AND businesses.  In that case, you would likely want to develop two separate programs to accommodate the specific needs of each type of patron.

What Features Will You Include?

It is important for you to plan what features you want to include in your loyalty program.  For instance, will repeat customers earn points toward their reward?  Do you have another plan in mind for how they go about accumulating credits for their purchases? 

After you decide this, you must figure out what form the reward itself will take.  Will it be a deeply discounted item or a free one?  Will there be a monetary limit to what that offer can be applied to?  Will there be any kind of limit on how often rewards can be redeemed?  These are all necessary features to decide upon before you hire somebody to develop your program.

Sound Advice for Creating Your Program

First, it is advisable to make a list of everything you want to include in your loyalty program.  This will be the basis of the program so do not leave anything out, write down all details.

The most critical aspect of this whole loyalty thing is to hire the right company to design your program.  Netclearance can guide you every step of the way.  With smart beacon loyalty solutions like Bounty you want to ensure you keep customers returning to your business.

Netclearance at Retail Business Technology Expo 2016

Netclearance at Retail Business Technology Expo 2016

On March 9th, we will be attending the annual Retail Business Technology Expo at the Olympia in London. The event is a great place for retailers from all areas of the industry to come and learn about all the latest tech and services that can help them to increase productivity, reduce costs and improve the customer experience. It is the ideal place to keep up to date with all the latest solutions, tools and tactics.

We will be showcasing our mBeaconPay technology and our CEO David Fernandez will also be hosting a speaking session, ‘Creating a cashless society – disruptive technology for the retail payments sector’ at 13:15 on 9th March in the Payments Theatre.

During the speaker session, David will share his insights into the roll-out of the mobile payments system that has revolutionised payments in major supermarkets and fast food outlets in Denmark and Norway. He will also discuss how the highly disruptive technology takes transactions direct from bank to retailer, not only changing the value chain by removing merchant fees, acquirers and PSPs from the fee structure, but also enhances security as there is less chance of fraud or error.

We will also be exhibiting our complete range of proximity beacon technology, including BLE, WiFi and RFID sensors, for proximity marketing, real-time tracking, customer engagement and Business Intelligence on stand 124. We will demonstrate how beacons for mobile payments and proximity marketing for retailers, banks and merchants can be combined and used for coupons and loyalty schemes.

 For more information or to arrange an interview with David Fernandez, CEO of Netclearance contact Bright Bee PR: Netclearance@brightbee.co.uk or on 020 8819 3170.

Smart Mobile Loyalty Strategies Boost Customer Engagement and Profits

One simple yet powerful strategy at the forefront of any successful business is that company's customer loyalty program.  With such a strategy returning customers are rewarded for their patronage, often with a tremendously discounted, or sometimes completely free, item of the customer's choosing.  Now companies can take that a step further and, with the aid of today's technology, implement a mobile loyaltyprogram.  Exactly what is that?  Let's find out now.

General Definition

A mobile rewards program is basically the same thing as a typical customer loyalty rewards program, the difference being the customer utilizes it through their SmartPhone or tablet.  Nowadays a high percentage of the public uses some form of mobile technology, including for payment methods and customer rewards programs. 

Why Use a Mobile Customer Rewards Program?

The biggest reason is that it is more convenient for the customer than carrying around a card in their wallet.  Instead that business' rewards system is used by something they carry anyhow - their mobile phone.  Rewards points are accumulated in the same manner as with a physical card but are stored on, and cashed in from, the person's mobile device.

Advantage for Businesses

Having a mobile customer rewards program is great for business because it makes it easy for customers to use it.  This is a huge incentive for them to keep returning time and time again.  They do not have to waste time searching for a physical card.  Instead they can pull out their phone and press an app button for that merchant.  Your business will be treating your customer's phone as a loyalty rewards card. 

How Does This Type of Program Work?

You set up an attractive-looking kiosk inside your business that invites your customers to come over.  When they do, a friendly employee will encourage them to participate in YOUR business' mobile customer loyalty program.  As an added bonus your business can offer them the option of receiving pertinent text messages that are related to your program. 

Netclearance offers a turn-key mobile loyalty program called  Bounty  that can kick-start your mobile loyalty initiatives with a low-entry cost and support for the major mobile platforms. Contact us and visit www.bountyusa.com to request more information.

Revolutionizing Proximity Payments Technology

Over the past few decades, we have seen society's preferred mode of payment shift from physical currency to debit cards and credit cards. As time goes on, other forms of payment have emerged, and are poised to take over as our new preferred method of payment. Proximity payments technology is but one of these technologies, and consists of the use of smartphones in order to transfer funds between businesses and customers in exchange for products and services, transcending industries and finding more nuanced uses every day. According to eMarketer.com, proximity payments in the United States handled $8.7 billion in transactions for the year 2015. For 2016, experts expect this number to climb as high as $27 billion. If this trend continues, this means that this technology will be the main method of financial transaction by 2019.

How Does Proximity Payment Work?

Proximity payment technology consists of an exchange between a smartphone and another compatible device via Bluetooth technology, where the smartphone acts similarly to a debit or credit card, connected to a customer's bank account. Of course, this means that both devices in a proximity payment exchange need to have Bluetooth capabilities, but as time goes on, more and more devices are becoming Bluetooth compatible.

Netclearance vs. Other Proximity Payment Technologies

As proximity payment technologies have become more popular, many companies have tried to jump on this trend, each with varying degrees of success. Examples include Android Pay, ApplePay, and Samsung Pay. While each of these technologies are innovative, they all have their own issues that impede ease of access, including:

• Usable only on phones they manufacture (walled garden effect)
• Credit card based systems
• User data shared with Google and other sites
• No options for customization
• Added fees

With our mBeaconPay technology at Netclearance, we want to help our users break away from these constricting qualifications, offering freedom through features such as:

• Phone agnostic (supports all smartphones regardless of make and model)
• App-based
• User data shared only with relevant banks and retailers
• No or low transaction fees
• Customizable (white-label)

With such a stark contrast, it's clear why mBeaconPay available here at Netclearance is more effective than its competitors. Contact us today to find out more!

Mobile Technology Will Make Customer Loyalty Cards a Relic of the Past

Today, most consumers keep several loyalty cards for their favorite retailers, cards that they either stuff in their wallets or tether to their keychains. Swiped or scanned at the start of a transaction, these cards can give customers discounts while also providing the retailer trackable data about customer shopping habits. But the most important aspect of loyalty cards is that they keep customers coming back for more.

Retailers love customer loyalty programs because it’s easier and less expensive to generate revenue from an existing customer than it is to try to attract unfamiliar consumers and try to wring sales from these new customers. Of course, retailers still want to attract these new customers. The longer-term goal is to turn these new customers into repeat customers, perhaps with the help of a loyalty card. For example, Starbucks claims its My Starbucks Rewards program was as a key revenue and profit driver for the coffee chain, notes Entrepreneur magazine. In a similar approach, Best Buy tweaked its rewards card program with a small points percentage boost in rewards that a customer could apply to future purchases.

While loyalty cards have been successful, they do have limitations. From the perspective of a consumer, a loyalty card is just one more thing to pack in an already bulging wallet. It’s also one more thing that could easily get lost. But there’s a loyalty card replacement on the horizon. The consumer migration toward mobile transactions will make loyalty card worries a thing of the past.

Customers are always looking for deals — that’s one of the reasons that they sign up for loyalty cards. But customers are also looking for convenience. Mobile loyalty programs give them that convenience. When the loyalty program is managed as mobile app on a smart phone, the customer no longer has a card to carry around and worry about losing.

In today’s digital world, most people are never without their smartphones. And having a digitally deployed loyalty programs means that consumers can take advantage of all of their programs from the convenience of their phones. No longer will they need to carry around multiple cards in a wallet. From the retailer’s standpoint, the constant digital interaction provides more detailed information about customers’ preferences and purchases.

These mobile loyalty programs are not far away. Netclearance offers an app called Bounty, which gives consumers access to coupons as well as information about places for food and entertainment. The app works with Netclearance’s multi-mode (Wi-Fi + BLE) proximity beacon technology, which provides to retailers tracking and location capabilities. By knowing the location of a customer, retailers can then offer customized content and promotions intended to drive more sales. Furthermore, analytics of browsing habits and purchases can help retailers plan and manage their inventory more efficiently. The future of digital loyalty is already here. Contact us to learn more.