2015 will finally be the year of social…payments

This is our second (of seven) of our 2015 predictions (watch the overview here and part 1 on beacons here) and we continue with payments.

Do you think the people talked about bank notes when they emerged in 1861 the way that we talk about mobile payments today? Were they proclaiming that 1862 would be the “year of cash”? That’s how I feel about the way we bring mobile payments into the conversation – like it needs to have higher status than the way we’ve paid for things forever. It doesn’t, it is just another form of paying. 3 years from now it will just be another option at the pump.

What makes mobile payments interesting are the companies that are changing their business models – or forcing others to do just that. Companies like Starbucks who own the #1 mobile payments app in North America or Venmo and Twitter who are making the things we buy social currency.

Greg and I feel 2015 will not only bring with it new advances in the way we pay but also in what we consider currency. The dollar bill has rivals and, for the first time in centuries, they aren’t coins.