NEW MONEY
The digital revolutions that transformed music, photography, videos, media, book and much more, is now getting ready to redefine money. Our relationship with money is changing. How we perceive it, how we earn it, how we spend it, where we spend it and most importantly our interaction with money is different compare to past. We don’t feel the need to have cash in our wallets anymore. As a matter of fact, people started to bet on which country will be the first to stop using physical money.
We are already used to our new wallets 1. The digital money is not limited to wallets though. There are new and innovative money systems such as Bitcoin. We wake up to new kinds of currencies almost every single day 2. Regulations also change to support the Fintech revolution and new ways of payment 3. In addition to all these advancements and innovations there are also new ways to earn money 4. Some of us run, some of us spend more and some of us help others to earn money. From points that we collect with loyalty cards to carbon footprints, the daily count of our steps, and even our calorie intake could be a form of money. Last but not least, we have many new payment tools 5. Today, we use our phones, watches and even our retinas to pay and we know that soon we will be using new devices that we don’t even have now.
1 NEW WALLET
Lots of innovative companies want to be the “wallet” of the new digital era. Players like Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are coming up with new projects continuously. We all have different user names and passwords for each of these platforms and usually they are linked to our credit cards. The new battlefield is not the digital platforms as thought but the physical ones such as corner stores, markets and other places that we visit frequently to do our daily shopping and the goal is to make digital money the ruler of these places.
2 NEW CURRENCIES
The Blockchain revolution triggers the emergence of new currencies as well. What makes these new currencies different is that they establish a trust protocol and eliminate the middlemen. Bitcoin is just one of these currencies. Even though it is the most known one, there are many more alternatives to Bitcoin.
3 NEW PAYMENT SOLUTIONS
The new payment regulations (PSD2) in Europe trigger new payment solutions. There will be many new players called PISP (Payment Initiation Service Provider). By this way third parties will be able to initiate payments to an e-merchant directly from the payers’ bank accounts. Sofort Banking and Trustly are only a couple examples for this new payment solution.
4 RUN TO WIN
Walgreens aims to encourage its customers to be more active and sportive with its new program called “Healthy Choices”. Once you join to the program you collect points by running, walking, quitting smoking, losing weight and much more and then use these points while shopping.
walgreens.com/steps5 NEW DEVICES: PAY AS YOU GO
Kerv is a pay-ring. Yet it has other skills other than being your wallet. What makes Kerv so special is that you don’t have to sync it with your smart phone like all the other smart devices such as smart watches. Purewrist is another product that enables you to pay as you go.
mykring.com