About half a decade ago, mobile wallets were hardly as prevalent as they are today. They were used by a minute niche of people who regularly bought stuff online but not with cards.
Combine this with the fact that the number of companies providing mobile wallet services as well as those compatible with mobile wallets was very small, and it is clear to see why mobile wallets weren’t so popular.
However, in the succeeding amount of time, mobile phone wallets have become the next big thing in the financial sector. Multiple mobile wallets have come up, each attempting to go one-up on the other using everything from offers to promises of greater convenience.
In such a market situation, how do you make your mobile wallet application stand out among the crowd? Let us take a look at some features that can help you in doing so.
1. Card Management
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It can be rather inconvenient to manage cards and whip them out every time you need to make a payment. This becomes doubly true if you have multiple cards.
Your mobile wallet application can be equipped with the capability to store information about your users’ cards virtually. This way, in case the payment needs to be made by card, customers can complete it without any delay.
2. POS Payments
POS (point of sale) payments have fast evolved from being a mere feature in mobile wallet apps to being a necessity.
Using integration with POS technology, you can ensure that payments can be made directly to a vendor’s account – even if the facility to pay by card is not available.
POS payments can be made in two ways – QR codes and NFC. With most mobile phones being equipped with NFC now, it offers a safe method of contactless payment through your mobile wallet.
3. Offers And Cashbacks
Regardless of which domain you operate in, customer loyalty and retention are metrics that you are likely to be monitoring on a regular basis.
This is because customer retention directly affects your bottom line – retaining customers is cheaper than procuring new customers. The best way that you can ensure customer retention as a mobile wallet is through offers and cashbacks.
You can partner with different brands and eCommerce websites to provide users with discounts if a purchase is made using your mobile wallet application. When you are looking to build virtual wallet apps, rewards must be a part of your business strategy.
4. Personal Budgeting
With the vast competition available, your mobile wallet app can no longer serve as a simple wallet. It must be a daily part of your users’ lives which helps them in simplifying their chores. One feature that can help do so is budgeting.
You can allow your users to set limits in your mobile phone wallet per day, week, or month, depending on the user’s period budget.
You can also allow them to create a budget on your app that aids them in calculating how much they can spend on different household and personal entities per week or month.
5. Loans And Credit Card Bills
Regardless of which mobile wallet customers use, they often have to opt for a completely different app to pay their loans and credit card debt.
They might even have to have their EMIs connected with their checking account when they can easily pay the sum using their mobile phone wallet app.
This is where your app can find a niche. A mobile phone wallet app that can incorporate periodic loan payments is bound to find a lot of takers around the world.
6. Tapping The Unbanked Population
There are regions in most countries where a significant proportion of the population might not have a bank account or access to banking facilities. This is perhaps because banks have not found it viable to open branches in these regions.
So, why not consider exploiting this niche? Mobile phone wallets can be a really important alternative to bank accounts since you do not need physical branches to provide banking facilities.
Not only can they be useful in serving underbanked populations but wallets also allow you to widen your user base considerably. This will ensure the success and popularity of your application.
7. International Payments
When learning how to create a payment gateway, it would also be prudent to gain some knowledge about international payments.
With business transactions becoming more and more globalized, incorporating the facility to make international payments using your app can provide you with a great opportunity to gain a wider customer base.
International payments need not be made only as business transactions. People living abroad could also use this facility to send money back to their home country.
You could also use the app to make payments on international eCommerce sites if you can convince them to integrate compatibility.
8. Security Considerations
The security considerations that you introduce into your mobile wallet app can easily act as a double-edged sword.
While it is true that people want the most secure mobile wallet experience that an app can provide, they also want these security features to be convenient and act toward reducing the number of steps to make a payment.
Besides, every country has its own laws and regulations monitoring and guarding banking security and customer data privacy. It is hence important that you be ingenious with the solutions you come with regarding the security of your app.
Features such as fingerprint authentication are more convenient for customers as compared to two-factor authentication and also provide more personalized security.
You can also connect the security of the customer’s mobile wallet to the overall security of the device.
In Closing
Creating a mobile wallet application does come with certain caveats, chief among them being that financial instruments are generally very highly regulated. You must make sure that you remain well within the boundaries of compliance when developing such an app.
The above features, when put together, are bound to make your app stand out among the crowd of financial apps available. All you need is an adept team of trained developers to succeed!
Raj Kumar is a qualified business/finance writer expert in investment, debt, credit cards, Passive income, financial updates. He advises in his blog finance clap.
