Who needs a wallet when you already have a cell phone?

Wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are looking to allow customers to simply "tap" their phone to make purchases. Similar in idea to the Charlie Card and Mastercard's paypass system, Isis technology is being integrated into Android, iPhone, Nokia, and Blackberry phones and relies on near field communication technology. The charges incurred will be sent to your phone bill rather than your credit card bill.

Interesting idea, however many concerns remain regarding consumers' willingness to switch, retail location infrastructure (incorporating an Isis register), how much credit will be extended through smartphone devices, identity theft, and the list goes on.

While widespread adoption is expected to take decades, it will be interesting to see what applications will be made available in that time to provide similar services.

SapientNitro’s ‘Banking of the Future’

It’s no surprise why e-banking in its various forms has been adopted so quickly – gone are the days of going downtown on Saturday morning to deposit checks and get cash while enjoying free donut holes and coffee.

Sapient suggests branches still exist because for certain transactions, customers feel “human interaction is a critical element of a specific solution.” The forefront of engagement, however, are not branches (primarily used to drive sales additional sales to existing clients) but Personal Financial Management tools such as Mint, Quicken, et al that consolidate, model and analyze a personal portfolio. Sapient argues that these tools work best as standalone platforms, and banks will mostly need to be concerned with B2C and C2C mobile transactions.

Will this movement disrupt the banking technology stack move more engaging products to the top, making “one-stop-shopping” in-effect obsolete? By missing the boat on microchip-embedded credit cards, did US banks leave the door open for more disruptive technologies such as radio frequency, e-payments, and mobile payments? Or, as Sapient argues, can branches leverage iPads, RFIDs, and CRM technology to “develop predictive capabilities so that it can anticipate customer needs and meet them in all-new ways”?