Youth, Money and Mobility

Yesterday, during lunch, the subject of checks was raised and we discovered that one among us had never written a check. Not too surprising, he was also the youngest of the seven of us. In order to transact financially, he uses cash, debit and credit cards, and electronic banking. As he was peppered with questions about how he paid for various items, I thought back to when I stopped carrying a checkbook and the last time I voluntarily wrote a check. Note, it has been nearly 20 years since I stopped carrying a checkbook. Even when I ran my own business, the only reason to write checks was to pay employees who did have bank accounts and to manage cash flow to certain vendors. Yet, in the 1990s, it was forecasted that not only would people stop writing checks, cash as well would become an anachronism.

The world was on the brink of becoming a cashless society. I was working with companies like IBM, Verisign and major banks in the U.S. and Europe on electronic money or digital cash. Ultimately, these solutions never received wide-scale adoption. Today, the most popular methods of payment include credit and debit cards, money transfers, electronic banking and, of course, cash. However, the use of mobile devices as a form of payment and money transfer is rising. While dollar volumes were not released, both PayPal and eBay experienced a surge in the use of mobile payment applications during Black Friday (PayPal reported +538 percent year over year (YoY). GSI Commerce reported an increase of 345 percent across the U.S. And according to IBM, consumers using a mobile device on Black Friday to visit a retailers website was 17.37 percent and the number of purchases using a mobile device was 9.73 percent (up over 300 percent YoY).

Our lunch discussion allowed me to note several things. IP communications has expanded the methods of payment for most us. It, along with improved broadband, Wi-Fi and wireless devices, enables a multitude of choices in how to conduct a financial transaction. However, check writing is not dead. In 2009 in the U.S. alone, 25.3 billion checks were written with an average value of $1625 (Global Finance Magazine). So, they will be with us for quite some time.

Just as the end of brick and mortar” was overstated with the advent of the Internet and eCommerce, paper transactions will continue to maintain a foothold in our economy. However, a clear trend exists with the always on” generation. They will conduct their financial transactions and, in general, their lives using solutions and tools enabled by IP communications.

David Byrd is vice president of marketing and sales for

Broadvox,

and is responsible for marketing and channel sales programs to SMBs, enterprises and carriers as well as defining the product offering. Prior to joining Broadvox, David was the vice president of Channels and Alliances for Eftia and Telcordia. As director of eBusiness Development with i2 Technologies, he developed major partnerships with many of the leaders in Internet eCommerce and supply chain management. As CEO of Planet Hollywood Online he was a pioneer in using early Internet technologies to build a branded entertainment and eCommerce website company partnered with Planet Hollywood. Having over 20 years of telecom sales and marketing experience, he has held executive positions with Hewlett-Packard, Sprint and Ericsson.