Six Reasons to Invest in Mobile Payment
AUSTIN, Texas — Despite an industry scramble to upgrade both in-store point-of-sale terminals and those at the forecourt to EMV standards, mobile payment is far superior to EMV from a security standpoint, Chuck Cagas, executive vice president of business development for XAC Automation Corp., told attendees of the Wayne Fueling Systems 2016 Technology Summit, taking place this week at Austin’s JW Marriott hotel.
Mobile payment is "one of the best security mechanisms we have to prevent fraud,” Cagas said during his “Mobile Payment 101” educational session. “In fact, in China, they are considering skipping EMV altogether and just going straight to using mobile payment for ecommerce.”
EMV is an acronym that stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, the three companies that originally created the security standard. Mobile payment is more effective than payments made with EMV chip cards because each mobile transaction involves tokenization, whereby personal customer information is replaced with a token, which is much more difficult for cyberhackers to steal, explained Cagas.
Aside from stronger security, the executive ticked off six other benefits of offering mobile payment at the pump:
1. Differentiate your brand;
2. Leverage location-based services;
3. Push out offers to drive customers to your location;
4. Streamline the fuel dispenser experience;
5. Push out additional offers/notifications while fueling to drive traffic into convenience stores; and
6. Make payment process virtually invisible to consumers.
As with all new technologies, some challenges do exist with mobile payment and the corresponding mobile wallet technology, which houses customer information via the cloud. Cagas, whose company delivers commerce specific solutions to the payments industry, was asked by a member of the sizeable audience how mobile payment transactions can be made if c-store operators post a sticker stating that cell phone use is prohibited near the pump, which is occurring at sporadic c-store locations.
Cagas responded that there are no state laws prohibiting cell phone use near gas pumps and news stories claiming cell phone use can lead to catastrophes at the pump is the stuff of “urban legend.”
“There was a story once about a fire at the pump being caused by someone carelessly being on their cell phone. But what was not mentioned was he was smoking a cigarette near the pump. The cell phone didn’t cause the problem,” he concluded.
A QUASQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
The 2016 Wayne Technology Summit continues through April 7, and this year's event honors the company’s 125th anniversary, also known as a quasquicentennial. Wayne Fueling Systems began as Wayne Oil Tank Co. in 1891 in Fort Wayne, Ind., as a dispenser of kerosene.
Company founders later moved into gasoline pumps as automobile demand grew. The organization's headquarters has been in Austin since the 1980s.
“We are very much a technology company. Wayne has always been a technology company, and Austin is a technology city,” Wayne CEO Neil Thomas said Tuesday as he kicked off the event.
As the world population grows, more people will be driving cars and more service stations will be needed, which Wayne hopes to serve, the chief executive added.
“There are 7.3 billion people in the world now, with a projected population of 8.2 billion in 2025,” said Thomas. “Another 25,000-plus service stations will be needed worldwide in 10 years.”