Mobile commerce gets a head start in city
With its Octopus card experience, Hong Kong is already ahead of the game in mobile commerce
Following Apple's recent announcement of the iPhone 6's mobile payment feature, Apple Pay, experts from both the public and private sector gave positive predictions for the outlook of mobile commerce in Hong Kong at a conference in the city yesterday.
Apple announced its much anticipated iPhone 6 on September 9, and unveiled Apple Pay, a new mobile payment function which uses near field communication (NFC) technology, which has previously been used in Octopus cards and contactless payment cards.
Visa, which sponsored the conference, is one of the companies partnering with Apple on Apple Pay, along with Mastercard and American Express.
Apple Pay "is getting people thinking about mobile payment, and I think that's good for the industry as a whole," said Nicholas Lee, head of emerging products and innovation at Visa Hong Kong and Macau.
Launching for US customers next month, Apple Pay is expected to bring "cardless" mobile commerce, which has faced concerns over its security, into the mainstream.
Lee said the technology addressed those concerns by replacing the consumer's credit or debit card number with a time-sensitive token, which would be securely stored and not reusable if compromised.
"Anything that is just a magnetic card with a sixteen digit number in the front and three digits in the back will be easy to steal and replicate," said Francis Fong, founding chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Interactive Marketing. "The new system should be much more secure than the existing one."
In addition to security, mobile commerce is also expected to create a platform where industry innovators can further improve the consumer experience, for example through rewards.
"You've got to add some value," said Chris Lau, director of future services at SmarTone. "Otherwise why would people choose to wave their mobile phones rather than their wallets."
Although Apple's service will initially only launch in the US, the conference speakers expressed optimism about Hong Kong's readiness to adapt.
Hong Kong already had a "very mature contactless payment infrastructure", said Jarkko Sevanto, head of Visa's mobile solutions in the Asia-Pacific region.
Peter Pang, deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said: "Hong Kong is ready and willing to embrace m-commerce."
He added the size of Hong Kong's mobile commerce market was expected to reach HK$17.8 billion next year, and the city had a mobile subscriber penetration rate of 237 per cent, one of the highest in the world.
Fong pointed to Hongkongers' positive experience with using NFC technology in Octopus cards for monetary payments.