Mobile Payment Security

India is a country that is still sceptical to online transactions. We have developed Cash on Delivery that is unique to Indian E-Commerce business. This unique system is a testimony of the fact that the Indian E-commerce system is still developing and the consumers have to establish a trust on the numerous portals that offer zillion products online. When the state of trust on E-Commerce is in such a questionable condition, little can be expected for M-Commerce. M-Commerce is doing transactions over the mobile phone. With the rapid rise in the number of mobile subscribers in India, markets are abuzz about the potential of M-Commerce.

To make M-Commerce a successful venture in India, a lot of effort will need to go into making the mobile payment system more robust. A robust mobile payment mechanism will establish the trust and dependence on the mobile commerce platform and encourage people to move towards M-Commerce.

Some reasons why mobile commerce over wireless networks is inherently insecure are:

• Reliability and Integrity: reliability is the quality of being dependable. A mobile network should be consistently dependable and reliable. Similarly integrity is the quality of being complete and whole. Message transferred from one location should reach the other location in whole and should reach every time. The condition of mobile networks in India is still not very dependable. In such a situation, mobile commerce will take some time to evolve.

• Confidentiality/Privacy: The message that is sent from one location should reach the other location and only the rightful receiver should be able to read it/listen to it. No third party should have access to the personal information sent over mobile networks. This becomes imperative when critical transactions are done over the mobile channel. Customer specific information like banking details, passwords etc. are sensitive information and no third party should be able to access those at any cost.

• Identification and Authentication: An evolved mobile commerce portal should be able to correctly identify and authenticate customers during a transaction. Identification is establishing the identity of a customer. On the other hand authentication is the verification of the identity supplied by the customer. When a customer supplies sensitive information like a credit card number, there should be a way by which it can be established that only the rightful owner of the credit card is supplying the number and it is not a fraud.

Mobile Portal development Strategy

Mobile portals have become pervasive and their demand as well as usability is growing every day. The benefits provided by mobile applications are proving to be a competitive advantage for many businesses. Websites like BookMyShow have started moving closer to their customers by launching mobile applications to avail their services. The fact that customers might not be able to access their desktop or laptop all the time but are always accompanied by their mobile phones is a huge motivator for businesses to come up with mobile applications to offer their services. The ubiquity and accessibility of mobile phones has also stemmed many innovative models that operate solely over mobiles.

What should be the strategy of a business that wants to develop a mobile portal? I am discussing a five Ds framework for developing a mobile platform. This framework is not developed by me but was a part of classroom discussions.

The five Ds frame work for portal development is a useful way of going about creating a mobile portal. An organization should adopt the above framework to develop a mobile portal to maximize reach and ensure a successful mobile venture.

Challenges in developing a successful mobile commerce strategy

The challenges in developing a successful mobile commerce strategy are manifold. Some of them are discussed in the following paragraphs.

·         Complexity – The number of players involved in developing a mobile strategy is very large. This increases the complexity involved in developing a mobile commerce strategy.

·         Uncertainty – there is a lot of uncertainty involved in the user preferences and the adoption curve that the portal will follow.

Disruption – The technology domain is very fast changing and there are innovations and discoveries that are coming into light every day. It is very difficult to predict the next disruptive technology on the horizon that will change the entire game.

User Experience in Mobile Commerce

Why is it important?

With the growing number of mobile operators and mobile applications in the market, the most important way of gaining customers is to ensure a ‘WOW’ user experience. A good user experience has the maximum potential of ensuring repeat business with the customer.

What do users want?

It ultimately boils down to user experience as we have seen previously. But how does one make sense of a user experience!! What are the chief expectations of users in a mobile application? I’ll try to list down some overlooked factors and also justify them to the best of my ability and knowledge.

Easy to use – This is by far the most important factor that engages users and encourages them to do a repeat business. An easy to use application renders control to the user and respects his/her preference. An application that doesn’t render control will result in frustration and users will constantly look for work around which may include switching.

Simple Interface – A company that aspires to become a leader in the M-Commerce domain would ideally want its users to learn using its application quickly and even more so become addicted to it. In such a case, the learning curve should be very short i.e. people should be able to adapt to the application and system intuitively. While designing an interface, focus must be on areas like design, functionality and navigation.

Personalization – Users want content that is relevant to their needs and requirements. The extent of personalization allowed in an application goes a long way in determining satisfaction reported by the users. Typical features that can be personalized in an application are sound notifications for special events/messages, suggestions that reflect past preferences, offline content for viewing etc.

Synchronization – Most user work on various devices at the same time e.g. the user may access the same application/website from their desktop and mobile. However, there should be common database which is reflected across all the platforms. Past preferences and decisions should reflect across all the platforms. This also works towards customizing the experience for the users.

Progress on the academic project

After gathering customer insights in the first week, we headed to develop on those insights. Brainstorming was the prime method of idea generation and the group sat down together to discuss the idea and the road ahead. Major specifications of the plan were finalized and the functionalities frozen. The brief approach followed in week second is discussed below.

Specifics about functionalities – The team discussed in detail the functionalities that are desired from the application. We conducted a market research to know the user requirements and what are the expectations from such an application. The insights gathered are immense and gave us a lot of fresh perspective on the design aspects.

Screen design – the screen design was finalized and careful thought was given to each and every screen and its functionality. The primary philosophy was to keep the UI as simple as possible and attain the functionality with minimum number of clicks.

Verification – The UI design was shown to a lot of potential users of the application and their insights were understood. This was meant as a feedback mechanism for the application and acted as a collaborative approach for development.

E-Commerce vs. M-Commerce

Many a times we confuse E-commerce with M-Commerce and vice versa. This would not have been a major aberration five years back from today when the use of mobiles in India was primarily to make calls and send messages. Mobiles have gathered a whole new dimension in India today where they are increasingly being used as a means to surf the internet and gather information. In this context it has become imperative that all businesses gear up to leverage this platform to know their customers better and provide them more convenient ways to connect to the business.

Thus emerges the era of M-Commerce which entails doing transactions over mobile phone. The portal/website over which the transaction is done should not be the same as that on a computer. Specially designed mobile portals are a feature of M-Commerce. These portals are designed to make the experience of mobile shopping more convenient and have processes designed with limitations of mobile devices in mind. Some of the important distinctions between M-commerce and E-Commerce are:

·         Mobility: E-Commerce can happen from location with internet access while M-Commerce can happen from anywhere in mobile network area.

·         Customer concern: E-Commerce customers are more concerned with money because of the free internet culture whereas M-Commerce customers are time conscious.

·         Locatability: The client computer can be located via. the IP address in E-Commerce whereas client’s device and geographic location can be located in M-Commerce.

Why is M-Commerce gaining popularity?

India is witnessing a dual state of existence where on one hand technology is making a speedy foray into peoples’ life while on the other hand there is a huge chunk of population that has not seen a laptop yet. This creates an imbalance that further creates opportunities for businesses to innovate and discover new ways of connecting with customers. Mobiles are a strong medium of connecting with customers all over the country because India has a high level of mobile penetration. Apart from this, the availability of inexpensive smart phones has also made it possible for a common man to access all the information available on the internet through his mobile device. M-commerce thus promises more penetration in the areas where E-Commerce would find it difficult to establish itself. Some of the most important areas for Mobile commerce would be rural India and remote geographical locations where it would be difficult to find a reliable internet connection. Also, the increasingly pervasive high bandwidth mobile networks in India also make M-Commerce more viable in the modern context.

Key to profitability in M-Commerce – Critical Success Factors

M-Commerce has a lot of potential in developing countries like India. However, the essential benefits of M-Commerce can only be realized when the customer is placed at the core of all process design and company communications. Some factors that will determine the success of an M-Commerce venture are

·         Ease of use – The usability of application will determine the success of an M-Commerce venture. The customer should be able to use the application intuitively and with least difficulty. The entire user experience will determine the stickiness of the application and keeping the user engaged will result in increased revenue and sustainability. Ease of use will include minimum number of clicks to purchase and search, visible appeal, speed and connectivity of the application.

·         Range of devices supported – India is a country that has a very diverse set of users and consequently a very diverse set of mobile devices. The range of devices used by the population range from the trendy IPads to the lesser known and inexpensive smart phones brands. The Operating Systems on these devices are also very diverse. The E-Commerce application should support these devices and platforms on these devices to be successful.

·         Security – the Indian population is still wary about internet transaction. M-Commerce is a concept that is completely alien in most parts of the country. In such a scenario that user trust is upheld in all situations. A dent in the trust level will result in loss of face and customer.

·         Price – Apart from the CSFs listed above, the primary driver of growth of M-Commerce will be price to the customer. Mobile applications should be ideally free of cost and companies should aim at recovering the investment in mobile applications by innovative ideas like product pricing or writing it off for intangible gains like customer delight and loyalty.

The underlining

M-Commerce is the way all businesses are moving because of the tremendous potential it promises. However, to engage the major chunk of customers who have never experienced transactions over the internet or mobile, companies will have to bring innovative solution to the table that make the customers comfortable and trusting.

M-Commerce in healthcare

The following is an idea that we are working on as part of an academic project. We are planning to develop a mobile application for the healthcare industry. The idea is content aggregation. The mobile application is aimed at bringing doctors in a city on a common platform for patients. The initial draft of the idea is outlined below.

Key Features

·         Signup using facebook accounts to avoid spending time in collecting data about the users.

·         Functionality to search doctors in a city and area of that city. Initially the application will allow search only in the metros and only certain areas in the metros. A wider scope in terms of geography and database is a function of evolution of the application with time.

·         Book an appointment with a doctor from the list of all doctors presented after the search.

·         A brief profile of the doctor is also available along with his/her qualifications in order to help the user to make decisions.

·         Reviewing and rating doctor services are another feature that will help users give feedback about the doctor services.

There are more features that are envisioned but will only surface once the user preferences are understood and analysed.