Leave your wallet at home. Local entrepreneurs Max Metral and Hasty Granbery have just emerged with Fig Card, a promising new mobile payments system that might just make paying with your iPhone a reality. Though still in its early stages, the Fig solution is one of the simplest, cheapest, and most implementable we’ve seen.
Mobile Payments has been a hot topic for quite some time now but progress in the U.S. has been painfully slow. We’re able to do so much with our smartphones already – manage emails, “check in” to specific locations, browse the web, and download apps for just about anything. How come we still can’t use these sensor-packed, location-aware, and internet-connected devices to simply pay for a coffee?
The complete answer isn’t a simple one. People in Japan and S. Korea have been paying for things with their phones over a decade now. Why the U.S. is so behind has less to do with technology limitations and more to do with bureaucracy and industry deadlock. Pymnts.com recently wrote about some of the challenges facing mobile payments innovation here.
Fig Card is able to circumvent many of the traditional mobile payments barriers by going directly through the web. Similar to how Square provides a mobile payments solution for merchants, Fig aims to do for consumers.
Altering the way we pay, however, is a difficult task. In order for any new payment platform to take off, implementation needs to be easy and there has to be a clear benefit for both merchants and consumers.
With Fig, all a merchant requires is a free piece of software installed on a POS terminal or computer and all a shopper needs is a smartphone with the free Fig Card app. And the benefits to using Fig go way beyond being able to ditch the wallets and loyalty cards. Similar to Foursquare or Gowalla, the consumer experience could be enhanced to include rewards for using Fig at certain retailers, competitions with friends, and making brick-and-mortar shopping more social. Rather than just “checking in” at a store, placing a dollar figure to a “check out” is a way more interesting and powerful concept.
Convincing retailers to get on board might prove to be trickier. It’s difficult to convince especially small shops and boutiques to integrate yet another payment system on top of handling cash, checks, and the many credit card varieties out there. Once there’s some traction, however, retailers might find that offering Fig as a payment option actually attracts more customers. I wouldn’t mind walking an extra block past Starbucks if a knew that Boston Common Coffee accepted Fig, for example. Also, since Fig works through the web, merchants might especially appreciate the wealth of data and statistics that they could begin to collect. The potential for rewards programs, customer analytics (think: Google Analytics or Mint.com), and couponing could be taken to the Nth degree.
Again, Fig Card is still very early on in their roll-out, but you can bet we’ll be watching them closely over the next few months. You can read more details about how Fig Card works on their blog.
Check out the video demo below:
Does the idea of paying with your smartphone interest you? What types of features would you like to see in a mobile payments app like Fig? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
