What is the future of payments and buying online ? We look through the eyes of kids to tell us
The one thing that really stuck me as odd in the USA is having to write a check. Coming from South Africa, where checkbooks haven’t been common for many years, this ancient check-practice became really frustrating. South Africa, and indeed Africa, have some of the world’s most advance mobile electronic banking systems and there are even rumors of Mark Zuckerberg was checking out M-Pesa in Kenya on his recent African visit…
So what is the future of payments? Surely checks need to go! The best “futurist” are the people who have grown up with technology and don’t know a world without it – our kids. Tiana Cline checks out Visa’s research into the future of payments:
Children are growing up as fast as technology is evolving. Screen junkies, digital heroine, anti-social behavior – how our kids interact with the tech around them is one area that gets a lot of flack. But no matter which side of the debate you sit on, one area where they are adapting at a seriously fast pace is how we pay for things. What’s a checkbook again?
Visa partnered with Effective Measure to conduct research into the spending trends in Africa. They found that the largest growth area in terms of new spending methods was the mobile arena, especially when it comes Africa.
What’s interesting is that today’s generation of kids are much more trustworthy when it comes to new technology like payWave, online shopping, NFC and more. They believe that tech is there to serve them. And when it doesn’t work out, they’re open to asking for help. They don’t necessarily get overwhelmed like adults do.
Visa interviewed a number of forward thinking (and at times very imaginative!) children across the country. Here’s what they had to say:
Take my tech-savvy two-year old as an example. He can unlock my iPhone and swipe to the screen where all his apps are located in a few seconds. With YouTube, he knows what caching means and reaches over to skip ads before I can touch the tablet’s screen. He even understands that paying for stuff from grandma is about setting up a quick FNB Geo payment. And at the shops, he insists on seeing the numbers on the keypad and wants his own card to pay for important stuff like marshmallows and chocolate. To him, coins go into a charity tin, they’re not for payments because those happen electronically.
Tiana Cline is a freelance content writer and editor with a penchant for violent video games and interesting gadgets. She’s passionate about being a woman in technology in the fast-paced age of information… but also a mom of three, the first being feline
