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The University of Milan published a report on the status of mobile payment in Italy in 2012 which shows a potential growth that might lead to a volume of mobile payments of over € 10 bn in 2016. Indeed, the current scenario of the mobile payments market reports transactions for € 900 million in 2012 driven by the growth of mobile commerce which increased by 60% even if the largest volume of transactions derives from the purchase of digital contents with € 470 million. Also the usage of NFC phones has generated interested data with over 2.5 million users and almost 30,000 POS which are expected to become 6 million users and 170,000 POS by the end of 2013.
This growth will be fostered by the recent law provisions, the so called Decree Sviluppo-bis, which set forth the obligation:
- for public entities and entities controlled by the State to receive payments through mobile technologies and
- for any entity selling products and services to accept payments through credit card from 2014 with the possibility for the competent Ministries to extend such obligation to payments through mobile devices.
This growth was also due to the increase of number of smartphones that are now held by more than 50% of Italian users and indeed Italy is one of the European countries with the highest mobile penetration per citizens.
However,as already mentioned, there are some regulatory restrictions but these restrictions might be removed waiving any regulatory limit to the usage of the credit on the phone SIM card for payments but also implementing measures aimed at creating incentives for mobile payments.
All these factors create very interesting expectations for the future of the Italian mobile payments sector and as usual feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio to discuss. Also, if you want to receive my newsletter, please join my LinkedIn Group or my Facebook page. And follow me on Twitter, Google+ and become one of my friends on LinkedIn.
