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Congressional subcommittee continues Disrupter Series on mobile payments

Tuesday, December 01, 2015 — 18:05:08 (EST)

Washington, D.C., Dec. 1, 2015 – The Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), today continued its Disrupter Series with a review of mobile payments. In light of the holiday shopping season now firmly underway, the subcommittee discussed how this innovative technology works, the security it provides consumers, and how it is disrupting traditional payment options for small and large businesses across the country.

“There has not been this big of an upheaval in how consumers pay for goods and services – their groceries or a haircut – since computers replaced the old knuckle-busting manual imprinters in the 1980s. These mobile payment options include protections not available with cash, and are easy to use for consumers who may be more likely to have their phone in their pocket than exact change,” said Burgess. “As has been the case throughout history, technology has the potential to solve problems and improve our lives. Mobile payments are no exception to this trend.”

“Consumers have more choices than ever about when and where to shop. These choices open up opportunities for innovation to take root and spread throughout the economy,” added full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI). “New technologies and competition are responding to consumer needs. Mobile payment innovation is happening all over the country.”

Witnesses discussed the innovation and security mobile payment providers offer for consumers and businesses.

John Muller, PayPal’s Vice President of Global Payments Policy, discussed just how pervasive mobile payment technology is becoming. He said, “The convenience brought forth by mobile payment technology has caused it to be adopted by both merchants and consumers at huge scale. Out of the 4 billion transactions PayPal processed last year, 1 billion were made on a mobile device. This growth is continuing – in the most recent quarter of this year, we processed 345 million mobile payments, up 38% year over year. Mobile payments are becoming the technology of choice for people across the world.”

Sang Ahn, Chief Commercial Officer of U.S. Samsung Pay, explained, “Several years ago, Samsung’s R&D teams began plans to extend our ingenuity into mobile payments. Based on our research, we found that consumers would only transition from plastic cards to mobile payments if the technology solution is: (1) secure; (2) easy to use; and (3) widely accepted at merchants nationwide. We concluded that many of the world’s top tech companies could make a secure and easy to use mobile payment solution.”

Jessica Deckinger, Chief Marketing Officer Merchant Customer Exchange, added, “At MCX, we believe it is incumbent on mobile payments technologies like ours not only to use the latest security technology, but to help educate consumers about how it is working for them.”

Sarah Jane Hughes of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law also explained how much mobile payments can help “unbanked and underbanked individuals.” She continued, “We are seeing the emergence of smartphones as the key connectivity option for less affluent persons and for those who reside and work in rural areas or parts of cities where fewer bank branches operate than they formerly did. Wireless phones have replaced land lines in these populations and also provide their Internet connections. Mobile payments offer attractive options for making payments on a person-to-person or person-to-business basis for those businesses that can accept payments via a mobile option.”

The subcommittee’s Disrupter Series has also included reviews of the Internet of Things, the Sharing Economy, and Drones.

To watch a webcast of the hearing, click energycommerce.house.gov/hearing/disrupter-series-mobile-payments .

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Source: Company press release.