Obopay, a mobile payment company, recently raised an additional $70MM in funding. Yep, that’s a lot of money, and that is on top of the nearly $70MM they had raised to date. Many other competitors are clawing their way into the market as well. However, no one has firmly staked a claim as the leader in this area. But the market is immense. The CEO of Obopay recently stated that there are 4 billion people worldwide with mobile phones. In my opinion this is the future where we are headed.

Some of the benefits overall:
- Scalability: Almost everyone has a cell phone, rich and poor alike. They carry it with them all the time, all over the world, and they continue to get more sophisticated.
- Universalism: software based payment system is easily customizable for different languages and currencies, and mobile systems can be setup to be highly compatible with one another.
- Security: No other payment form has the ability to determine and verify a) a unique id [in this case, for the cell phone], b) a user pin, and c) gps coordinates all together to detect and prevent fraud. Biometrics could add an additional layer of security.

The market includes massive amounts of people in the developing world. The majority of the world’s population is unbanked.  In fact many people argue that this is the only market for m-commerce.  I disagree.  The US may be slower to change, as it has both a larger banked population and entrenched payment systems, but it will change eventually.  First, there are many unbankable people in the US (poor credit, etc.) for which a prepaid solution would provide the normal functions a banked consumer has come to expect.  But beyond that there is real value for the banked population as well.  As the software is more widely supported on mobile phones, and mcommerce is integrated into POS systems people will adapt.  They always do, especially when it means they can simplify your life – and that is indeed one of the value propositions for US users.  Get rid of more of the shit your carry with you all the time, let one device handle more.  Do things you couldn’t do with a card, like transfer money wherever you are to whoever you want (another phone, card, or bank account), change your pin, even make international remittance payments.

The key for adoption will be support and ease-of-use.  If that’s all in place, sign me up.