2012 - The year the Payment Paradigm began to shift!

I predict 2012 will be the year we all remember as "the year the payment paradigm began to shift!" Granted Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter) did launch his ground breaking service (Square) back in May of 2010. Nevertheless, this is going to be the year the mass market will remember and the year consumers began to see relevant products hitting the marketplace from the "big boys", namely: Intuit GoPayments and PayPal Here. And if adoption rates continue to climb at such a rapid pace, we should expect to see many more "thoroughbreds" entering this race this year and next.

“Mass Market Joe” and “Mass Market Jane”

According to the US Census Bureau 1.4 billion credit cards are circulating here in the US. The Federal Reserve reports that $1.9 trillion is spent on those cards each year. Yet according to Forrester, only 7% of this is spent online. And they forecast by 2016 this percentage will only grow to 9%. The person I call “Mass Market Joe” or “Mass Market Jane” is the consumer who is spending 93% of $1.9 trillion offline. Who are they? I believe they are the consumer who simply does not trust the internet. The 2010 Census found that 80% of US households have a PC connected to the internet, yet 64% of American’s surveyed said they’ve abandoned a shopping cart check-out because they felt the site was either asking for too much information or they had security concerns.