Expect Mobile Payments to Have a Breakout Year

INCUMBENTS IN MOST INDUSTRIES AREN’T BIG FANS OF INNOVATION

History is replete with examples of entrenched companies fighting against advances in technology and the disruption it brings to their legacy business plans. One of my favorite examples of the war on innovation is from the music industry. (No, not the record labels’ epic battle against online music stores, although that is a textbook case). It involves John Philip Sousa, who took a break from composing marches in the early 1900s to lobby Congress to outlaw the new music innovation of the day: the player piano. He saw this automation as destroying the market for his sheet music.

For the payments industry, innovation in technology is causing a march forward, and for good reason. We are embracing innovation in mobile payments because they promise to expand the market more  . . .