Conference Roundtable: The State of Mobile Payments

Mobile payments won’t take over the universe in 2015, as the tech media would have you believe. But it will have a noticeable impact on our favorite new topic: On demand local services (ODLS), a la Uber.

That’s where mobile payments’ physical barriers (i.e. point of sale compatibility) don’t exist. Think of it like in-app payments but for local services fulfilled offline — everything from walking your dog to getting a ride somewhere.

Apple Pay could unleash this already quickly developing area by creating a single point of entry for payment authentication. That makes it easier than dealing with separate payment systems for several ODLS apps.

We tackled this topic in the opening analyst roundtable of our Interactive Local Media conference last month in San Francisco. The video is below for the mobile payments segment. The rest of the roundtable is coming soon.