Consumers? What consumers?

As such, American companies are bringing their approach to the secure transactions business. The industry was originally started in France and in Germany, with a traditional engineering approach where engineers develop products in their labs, and deal with other engineers at customers’ to channel their products to the end user. End users adopted SIM cards as they were part of the deal when using a mobile phone. Europeans, Asians, and many others switched from magstripe to smart banking cards when they got their card delivered by the bank, without having their say.

American Blue chip companies are bringing with them a more user-centric marketing approach, and, for the first time in this industry, someone is taking care of consumers!

Consistently with this shift of power, GlobalPlatform just issued a white paper on an ecosystem that enables consumers to have ultimate control over which secure applications they want to use on their handset.

The secure transactions industry is changing its ways. Consumers are given more options, they are in a position to make decisions on which technology they want or not, and with NFC, which application they choose to install, and to keep top-of-wallet. Adaptation to this trend will need a change of culture. Only the most consumer-centric will be able to do it.

Thierry Spanjaard

Chief Editor

Smart Insights