Mobile Payments: Navigating A New World – Part 2 of 4

In part 1 of our 4 part series on mobile payments we touched upon the interdependencies among the various stakeholders participating in a mobile payments solution and the importance of integration – even if there's no central integrator. To appreciate why integration is such an important aspect of mobile payment solutions, first let's understand the following technical roles played in transacting mobile payments:

• Credential Issuer – Traditionally, this is the payment card issuer (such as the bank or retailer), but for the purpose of mobile payments this is more specifically the organization that issues personalized customer data used to identify the customer and initiate payments (such as a credit card number or pre-paid loyalty card number), which in many mobile payment models must be loaded onto the smartphone.