I have been telling you about the future of e-commerce and some of the many struggles that the e-commerce industry is trying to handle today in my previous articles (you can find them on my profile page).

It’s about time for us to take a step back and look at what’s going on around the globe again.

There are a couple of heavy forced pushing forward, you probably have seen some of them in the news but did you connect the dots?

Before we open Pandora’s box fully let’s look at one more level of critical interest both for you as a consumer but also for the e-commerce merchants, the retail industry, and the global banks.

We see an interesting shift in the industry, where tech companies start to become payment gateways or banks perhaps.

Future of payment system:

Apple with Apple pay, Samsung with their Samsung pay both being digital wallets, eliminating the use of credit cards.

We see that some of the banks have done their homework and understand that consumers want to carry fewer things with them but will have their phone with them at all time.

Another future of Payment method:

And instead of being outmaneuvered by Samsung and Apple they made use of the NFC technology and replaced the credit card with an app that communicates with the bank to generate a sort of “virtual credit card” on their own.

And banks trying to keep up and grasp for control, trying to look like they are in the forefront by pushing out the "Contactless payment" credit cards.

A solution that was hacked long before it was even released with the use of simple skimming devices where you can copy a credit card details from about 90 meters away. Things have improved a lot since the first generation of the contactless cards but still its far from acceptable from a security point of view.

Making room for protection devices like skim cards that broadcast a ton of numbers if anyone tries to read your wallet from a distance. But also, RFID blocking wallets, that are said to block the RFID signal might not protect you fully.

The problem is that you must carry a sort of mode of future of payment with you, or in some countries, you still must carry around cash.

In Sweden, we now see many of the stores actually stop accepting cash and only accept payment with a card or smart payment solutions as Apple Pay and other. This type of payment is the “Future of Payment”

But let’s move beyond that, let's step back to the problem. Consumers want more, or less rather as consumers want things to happen without them having to do any heavy lifting. In the past, the problem was that we did not want to carry cash with us and make withdrawals from the bank all the time.

After that, we moved on to not wanting to get the card out from our wallet and moving fast beyond that point to not wanting to carry a wallet with us at all and now...

In just a few days (1st January 2018) the new payment service directive known as PSD2 and the EU law MiFID II will be forcing the banks to give full access to the data collected about their customers.

Opening up for endless possibilities in the Fintech industry and challenging the bank's original position.

I can talk about this for a week probably but I don’t want to bore you just yet.

What we now know is that the banks will no longer be banks, and the new payment industry will also be hit by the fintech force that is pushed by the consumer.

Last year we could see Amazon launching a new physical store concept, Amazon Go that relies on no smart payment with your phone, no cash, and no credit card payment. There is no checkout, no lines, no self-register counter.

It’s just a door, you walk in and you grab whatever it is you want and then you walk out from the store.

The store is fully based on image recognition solutions where the store ID you when you enter the store. The store then Identifies what item you pick from anywhere in the store and finally as you leave charge your Amazon account for the items you picked up and leave the store with.

Eliminating the need for smart payments on your phone, credit cards, cash and... perhaps banks as we know them eventually?

But what happens when everyone just walks around grabbing whatever they like to have from stores and walking out, will we lose control of our personal economy…

At first, it does look like that but then we look at what can be found today with solutions like Re: Member, that enables us to live a more flexible life based on the income we have over a longer period of time than what we have just right here right now.

Combining technology and thinking outside the box like no bank has been known to do previously I am sure that the fintech industry with their new superpower of unlimited consumer data could solve this problem for us.

Making it possible for us to live life like we just don't care, spending money as we find suitable in the moment.

We will even see technology that guides us to items that we can afford rather than items that we should not spend money on based on our current credit value.

Are you ready to be guided how to live your life and what to buy by machine learning algorithms and AI´s

This is just a short glance at a keynote presentation that I’m currently preparing on for a tech event in a few weeks but if you like me to go on please write it in the comment field and mentioned what area you are most intrigued by.

If you found interest in this article I believe that you also will be interested in reading the other article series that I'm writing about the future of e-commerce, you can find it here --> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-e-commerce-part-1-consumer-relationship-karl-lillrud

I won't meet you for a long time, so I like to ask you for two things:

1. I love feedback, just hit the like button or write your feedback either in a personal message to me or in the comment field. It could simply be that you agree with me, or you can point out things that you like me to elaborate on or perhaps what you hope to read about in the next article.

These articles are meant to help and educate you but if you think I'm shooting too high or too low I need to know so that I can finetune the aim for the next article a little so that it fits you perfectly.

2. I need your help to spread the word, I have been working in this business for many years already but I rarely see these type of articles, and to me, that's an alarm bell going off. The things I talk about are to a large extent things that almost everyone in the e-commerce business should know about but most people don't. If you're interested in talking more I am here, just give me a call +46733133600 or send me an email k@maneer.se

Contact me to come and speak at an event, a seminar, a school, or in your office, just email or call me.

About the author:

Karl Lillrud is a serial entrepreneur with 21 years of experience from this segment.

Founder of one of the first interior design e-commerce sites in the Nordic countries where he back in early 2000 learned about the many challenges that e-commerce struggle with even today.

That's why Karl decided to help companies overcome these hurdles and focus on what matters most, keeping customers happy and helping the companies improve their market position. Being a public speaker and entrepreneurial mentor Karl love to share his experience and knowledge with the one goal to help others reach their success easier and faster.

Karl LillrudCEO, Founder and EntrepreneurMe@KarlLillrud.com+46733133600www.KarlLillrud.com

Source:

https://www.apple.com/apple-payhttps://www.samsung.com/us/samsung-pay/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_payment

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3199009/security/why-you-dont-need-an-rfid-blocking-wallet.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-23/european-banks-will-have-to-share-data-with-their-rivals

https://inc42.com/buzz/sbi-cards-contactless-payments-pos/