Almost since the advent of Smartphones, the concept of digitizing the wallet has grasped the imagination of many. From those of us with a pocket book the size of George Costanza’s exploding wallet through to those of us who simply don’t want to have to carry around another item, the Smartphone offers a potential solution to one of life’s annoyances. Unfortunately, the Digital world has still not provided a true replacement.
The biggest problem is that we are faced with replacing a wallet full of items with a smartphone full of apps, as no solution seems to address more than a small segment of the problem.
Consider the things we carry in our wallet:
- Money (cash and plastic). A plethora of technologies have arisen to replace money in our wallet. With the advent of contactless payments and technologies such as the Apple Watch, this is the area where the digital wallet has advanced furthest. My experience using a pay tag (a smaller version of the contactless credit card attached to the smartphone and integrated with an app to manage its functions) has been great, with a significant reduction in the number of times I reach for my wallet. However, even in Australia where contactless payments have arguably progressed further than any other country, there are still numerous occasions where I have to insert my card into a PinPad, or pay cash to a retailer who does not accept any form of card.
- Identity. Whether it is a Drivers License, National Insurance or Social Security, most of us carry identification documents in our pocket. Digitizing these is of course in the hands of the issuers – unless a jurisdiction decides to proceed down the digital path, such as the NSW Government has in their current election campaign, we will be required by law to carry these.
- Business Cards. Despite the spread of professional networking tools such as LinkedIn, it is still simpler when meeting someone at a conference, a networking event or even a business meeting, to simply hand over a printed card with your details. Applications such as Bump tried to address this, but ultimately were closed down. Until a method is developed to exchange details without laboriously typing in an email address or mobile number, that 3.5 x 2 inch piece of card will continue to proliferate.
- Membership cards. Whether it’s a retail loyalty card, the card for the local library, or the season ticket for your favourite sports team, cards bearing a barcode representing membership seem to be everywhere these days. Apps such as Stocard offer a way to digitize many of these, although you still need to get the physical card first. The difficulty of older scanners to read the reflective surface of a smartphone also causes issues, but these will fade over time.
- Receipts. Every time I transact, I get another piece of paper – sometimes two – to add to my burgeoning wallet. Individual retailers have started to offer digital receipt solutions, but they are not ideal. Generally they consist of emails, which simply deposit a copy of the receipt into my mailbox. I expect my digital wallet to allow me to store, access, sort and search my receipts, so I can recall my purchase documentation at will.
- Coupons & Vouchers. The final items stretching my wallet to bursting point are the coupons and vouchers offering me discounts and special offers from diverse retailers and organizations. Although many retailers offer these in digital form in their own app, I really don’t want to fill my smartphone with the apps of 50 retailers. What I really want is an app that all retailers (or at least a significant number) will use to publish their coupons. Apps such as Apple’s Passbook try to achieve this, but don’t have the retailer take up to make them truly a replacement for my wallet.
All my life I’ve been waiting for technology to deliver me the promised flying car, video telephony, a personal jetpack, cheap fusion power….. and a virtual wallet. How much longer will I need to wait for the virtual wallet to become a reality?