Mobile Wallets
Mobile wallets are apps that hold your credit, debit, prepaid, and loyalty card information in your smartphone. They generally offer a safer and more convenient alternative to carrying around those cards, and cash, in a physical wallet. Mobile wallets can be for general use or for use at specific retailers. Examples of current general-use mobile wallets include Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay — these wallets can be used at any retailer that supports them — while an example of a current specific-use mobile wallet would be the Starbucks app, where the use of the app’s wallet is limited to Starbucks stores only. Mobile wallets generally work by first having the user enter his or her card information, followed by a PIN to secure and encrypt the wallet. These wallets then interface with retailers’ point-of-sale (POS) systems by either generating unique QR codes for the POS systems to read, or by communicating over contactless technology such as NFC (near-f...