Austin Looks to Lead the Mobile Payments Wave
Austin, Texas, is a major area for mobile payment deployments in the United States, with analyst David Schropfer describing the city as “among the top five cities in the world in terms of focus and attention that people are giving to [mobile payments] and the companies that are there.” Among the ventures that have cemented Austin’s reputation for mobile payments is the Isis network, which chose Austin as a pilot market for its NFC-based services, and PayPal, which is increasing its Austin workforce as part of an effort to make mobile payments the starting point for its new software development. Meanwhile, the city’s tech talent has drawn companies such as Mozido, with Mozido CEO Richard Braddock predicting that “mobile payments are going to be the payment system for the world. The question of how to build that is the question of how much consumer value do you put into your offering.” Mozido has plans to become a key payments network for underbanked consumers, both in the U.S. and internationally. Isis selected Austin as a pilot site because of the area’s burgeoning youth population and its early tech adopters, and the company’s Nan Edwards says the experiences with the pilot will inform Isis’ faster service rollouts elsewhere.
From “Austin Looks to Get Out in Front of Mobile Payments Wave”
Austin American-Statesman (04/06/13) Ladendorf, Kirk