In Digital Wallets, Payments Matter — Get Ready — Least

BOCA RATON, Fla. — And you thought digital wallets were about payments.

It turns out that in emerging digital wallets, it’s not the payment that matters most, developers are finding. Rather, what are most important are the other frills developed along with the payment innovation.

“Payment functionality is minor,” said Carl Rutstein, senior partner and head of payments practice in the Americas at the Boston Consulting Group, during a panel at this week’s Best Practices in Retail Financial Services Symposium.

Added Mark Warshawsky, senior vice president of mobile channel planning and design execution at Bank of America: “There has to be more than migrating a card to a phone.” 

Some experts — and credit card companies — believe the true appeal of digital wallets to U.S. consumers lies in the discounts, digital advertising and pre-ordering services, among other yet-to-be-developed digital commerce functionality tied to the product.

“What might matter is not payments, but if there are other apps to justify it,” said Jim Bramlett, partner at Novantas LLC. “The winning formula is not yet known yet.”

Though Bramlett said he believes there are profits in mobile wallets, the question of who will earn it is unknown. One uncertainty is, well, certain: the profiteer will not necessarily be the banks.

But before anyone can truly profit from digital wallets, Bramlett believes the players fighting within the ecosystem will first need to persuade merchants of the technology’s benefits. That means digital wallets must first address merchants’ needs in order for the technology to gain traction in America, he said. Merchants’ current needs are creating more sales with lower transaction costs,

“Solving the consumer need won’t be the driver; it will be the merchant needs,” Bramlett said. “The biggest gap is on the merchant side … merchants don’t want to pay so much.”