On April 16, Amazon filed a patent for an anonymous payment system for mobile devices. The goal of the design is to minimize the amount of data that must be sent over the air for each payment transaction. The patent can be viewed here:
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,423,457.PN.&OS=PN/8,423,457&RS=PN/8,423,457
This is interesting because if it takes off, a fast and efficient payment system like this could compete with PayPal (owned by eBay) and other anonymous payment systems. It works through text messaging - a user sends a text to Amazon's payment service, which holds your money and replies with a secret code. Then you pay the vendor by giving them the code; the vendor can then use that code to withdraw the money you had previously paid. Thus, Amazon's service sort of acts like a temporary bank or safety vault.
Here is the article:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/17/amazon-patent-describes-a-mobile-payment-system-that-keeps-transactions-anonymous/
The mobile payments market is already becoming saturated, with competitors like Square, Intuit, and PayPal. It is hard to say just from one patent, but it definitely seems that Amazon may be interested in entering that market space. And with a trusted name like theirs, they may be able to make a dent.
A lot of companies are looking into effective ways to process payments using minimal information. NFC is a huge buzzword right now but the main issue is too much information is wirelessly accessible, which leaves room for potential theft.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely an interesting and novel approach to mobile payments, many of which currently seem to rely on phone numbers, email address, or credit card information. By utilizing text messages, instead of an app or the mobile web, this patent might prove to be accessible to more people, given the reliance on data that the other solutions entail. I'd be interested to see how this patent progresses over time!
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