A No-Confusion Guide to Build a Secure Mobile Wallet App in 2018

From the last quarter of 2017, we witnessed that the mobile wallet app has turned into one of the fastest-growing digital product. Do you agree? I think most of you will nod your head in YES.

Well as per Statista, revenue of the global mobile payment app has increased from 450 billion USD to 780 billion USD. In US itself, 45% of the consumer between the age group of 25–34 are using P2P payments. The next age group from 35–44 years has shown a 37% increase.

Experts are predicting that the revenue will climb more than 1 trillion in 2019.

And as per the current reports from the Indian market, RBI confirms 16% rise in mobile payment. Moreover, with the coming of an app like Paytm or Google Tez, online wallet apps making things fall into place.

Why Should You Build A Mobile Wallet App?

More than 1.2 billion people have access to a bank account with payment capabilities. However, you will also find more than 5 billion mobile phone users. That indicates more numbers of people have access to mobile phones than subscribers in banks. So mobile wallet app development can be a good idea for the startups, MSMEs or large enterprises to invest. As every financial institution will love to increase their customer base through a slew of mobile applications.

The mobile payment app development is not something new. These type of apps are available in the market for a long time. A mobile wallet app can turn a mobile into a smart and more interactive device. It makes the world of online payments, vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards more rewarding. But what you need to get started is a complete guide to build mobile wallet apps — and this may be the one you are looking.

What’s the fuss about digital wallet apps? Which industries can actually make benefit with e-wallets?

Now after the launch of Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay the online payment industry has surely garnered some motion. But it has particularly favored some of the industries and I think that made the world go GAGA after online payment apps.

A mobile wallet app is nothing but a type of payment service/channel where the user sends or receive money using the smartphone. It can store your credit/debit card information, digital currencies, tickets and loyalty cards, which you can use to make purchases at any time.

However, connected with money does not mean it is only helping the financial industry to thrive. There are some more industries and verticals who are taking the advantage of mobile payment app development.

#1. Retail and Ecommerce Businesses

The retail and e-commerce business is particularly using the mobile wallet apps to the fullest. They allow to store information about bargains, make payments in the form of coupons, bonuses, loyalty cards and more. If you want to create an e-commerce or retail business app, you need to know the payment gateway integration trends and keep yourself updated.

BONUS READ: 5 Payment Industry Trends That Make Transactions More Secure

#2. Financial Organizations

You get access to various cards like credit or debit that provide customers with a number of services. To make things cardless, financial companies integrate mobile wallet apps, where the stored information of credit and debit cards give customers direct access to make transactions.

#3. Telecommunication Companies

The telecommunication companies are allowing the customers to use mobile wallet apps to do bill payments, recharge and even send money to other accounts.

#4. Transportation and Logistics Companies

You must have tried Ola and Uber and have seen how they allow you to pay through digital wallets. They have even built their own mobile payment apps like Ola Money or integrated Paytm (Indian mobile wallet app) in Uber.

#5. Food, Grocery, and Event-Based Businesses

From paying for movie tickets to your favorite theatre show. Even ordering a food when you do not find cash in your wallet or shopping in a supermarket. An NFC payment app has made a customer’s life become easy in this busy and hectic world.

If you have landed in this article, I may suppose that you are either looking for the right ways on “how to build a mobile wallet app?” However, prior to that, you need to determine the type of digital wallet you need, study the market, be smart when you target potential customers and fix the kind of user experience you want to deliver. After you confirm on all these aspects, fix the features that you prefer to integrate as the total number of features you add will reflect in the final cost of the app development.

Tips and tricks on how to create easy and secure mobile payment app

If you think to create an e-wallet for only a specific store or for general usage, you need to know certain useful tips and tricks. It is one of the serious matter when you want to build such an app as it comes with too many complexities. So it is important to make a quick investigation on –

#1. Have You Done Your Homework? Did You Study the Market?

For any app development process, irrespective of the industry you need to do your homework. Thanks to the digitization, we can seek any information online. So with a little digging inside we can avoid the common mistakes that other online payment apps made. You can go through this good read in ThinkMobiles that tells how the top performing mobile wallet apps broke all stereotypes.

#2. Be Smart While Telling the Key Purpose of Your App

You have to create the app in a way your target audience actually want to use it. In order to do this, decide the problem you want to solve with the product, services you will provide and who can use the application. Divide the customers into groups by age, habits, professions etc to foresee what each category needs. Rewarding digital wallets are in high demand these days, so provide them with a reason to turn loyal to your secure wallet app. The app marketing campaign you run should focus on the potential customers, personalized offers and relevant content that shows product’s purpose.

BONUS READ: How to initiate an app marketing campaign?

#3. Choose Your Wallet Type

After you fix the platform on which you want your mobile wallet app to be built, now its turn to choose the type of wallets. Well, there are a few common types that are breaking grounds –

1. Wallets that send and receive money with the help of a mobile operator
2. One which writes off funds through SMSes
3. Another that make payment through the web
4. The wallet that use NFC to initiate contactless payments

#4. Kind of User Interface You Must Stick To

For app success, UI and UX are inevitable part and hence the UI of your online payment app should reflect the main purpose. Your top priority is engagement, readability, catchiness and memorable icon and a brand name. The hierarchy of your app screen should also be suitable and logical as well. Every swipe, touch, and click should be valuable enough. Make sure the app is user-friendly and less complicated for the users.

And do discuss with your mobile wallet app development partners about the time taken to develop your payment app — as it is very important for app success to launch it at the right time.

DOWNLOAD: How Long Does It Actually to Build a Mobile Wallet App?

What Features Makes Your Mobile Wallet App Development Unique from Others?

When you work on the mobile payment app you have to consider some of the basic features. Some of them are normal to find and satisfy the client demands, such as –

• User Registration or Login
• Authorizing Bank Account/ Credit Card / Debit Card
• Add and Check Account Balance
• Fund Transfer
• Bill Payment/ Recharge
• Discount / Redeem Coupons

We know mobile wallet app development is a full-fledged solution for your business and it can turn up to connect with your clients and increase a strong database of loyal customers. However, some more additional features can provide you with useful experience and can help your online payment app to stand out. This includes –

• Loyalty card
• Reward offers with advertising campaigns
• Gift cards
• Push notifications
• Integration of geo-tags
• Membership cards

Now let us look into some particular ideas that you need to consider besides these enlisted features. Hire mobile app developers who have wide experience in financial app development or you can simply take a walk through our guide to know what a financial software actually need to have as their main features:

BONUS READ: A Complete Financial Software Development Guide

How Does a Mobile Wallet App Works?

We normally know how to use a digital wallet. You need to open the app and authorize the app using a PIN code, password, fingerprint scanner etc. Then you will find the users to choose a card or banking account and plan to use this account for performing any type of current transaction. Then the users can “Apply Coupon” against the transaction if available. To achieve this goal the user should connect to the payment terminal.

For this entire process, the mobile payment apps use a number of technologies, let us list them below. Make sure you talk to your app development partners and settle for the technology that you prefer to use in your app.

1. NFC technology to transfer information about payments

This is one of the contactless remote technology that functions on the distance up to 10 cm and provides users with secure and contactless payment between smartphones and PoS devices. This technology works almost like the Bluetooth, but it is connected immediately whereas Bluetooth takes about one-tenth of a second. This technology allows versatility and will function even if the compatible device does not have any power. In this technology, payment is made due to automatic payment and information extraction from mobile to the payment terminal. If the mobile wallet app supports host card emulation the user needs to have a proper Internet connection to close the process.

2. Bluetooth and iBeacon is also used for payments

iBeacon allows radio beacons to initiate contactless data exchange with very little power consumption. Devices emit a signal in an uninterrupted manner received by the smartphone with BLE and located with a notable range of 70 meters. The user simply needs to activate Bluetooth to receive the radio beacons. iBeacon technology allows sending personified offers about various ad campaigns, discount coupons and when they fall in the range of the radio beacons. It increases the client’s interest and you should not hesitate when you choose iBeacons.

3. QR Codes is one of the acceptable forms of payments

With the use of special services like QR generators, you can help encrypt the information and create a code, add images of generated QR code on forms of the receipts. Customer needs to see the code on their mobile app screen and make payment from their bank accounts. They should confirm the processing entering a password. The client receives payment receipt over the email and this allows you to use the mobile wallet safely.

Security Comes First When You Are Into Mobile Wallet App Development

Security is one of the most important components that you should consider when you are building online payment apps. Nobody will like to see his or her money stolen. So with the use of the following technologies the mobile wallet app development companies try to make the service safe and secure from every end.

Point to Point Encryption — One of the robust security tool that provides protection to the entire transaction process. It starts encrypting as soon as swipe your phone over PoS terminal and, then funds and finally up to authorization. So if you have hired a mobile app developer to build a similar app like Paytm or Google Tez make sure to enable this secure process of the transaction.

Tokenization — This technology makes online payment more secure with the help of a reliable data connection. The buyer does not give his or her seller the payment details with use of a card. Thus all card information stays encrypted and turned into a so-called token that looks like a similar random number.

Passwords — A Password is the kind of protection of any app or website that every app with personalized details should possess. It’s better to add a rejection feature in case the customer enter a very simple and short password, this will help to make the security more intense. We can additionally add a biometric support, in case the smartphone has a fingerprint scanner.

BONUS READ: How to Hire Mobile App Developers to Build a Secure Online Payment App?

Let Your Mobile Payment App be the Next Amazeballs

Coming to the end of this article, we will like to take a small gasp and say that — whether an established business or a new startup, who wants to launch a mobile wallet app or have felt the app recently must make sure of few things –

• Why should they build the mobile app?
• Survey the particular industry for which they are trying to build the online payment app.
• Study the similar apps in the market and find out the pain points it has failed to solve.
• Choose the wallet type that suits the business
• Get to see and find a better user interaction interface
• Choose the features of your mobile wallet app carefully
• You need to know how a mobile wallet app works and which technology is the best
• Think about the security of your in the first place.

Make sure you create a mobile payment app for the users and not for yourself. Your app will be in use by the common people, and all of them are not tech-savvy. The users prefer a simple platform to access services. They do not have time to spend on understanding your app from the scratch. Another thing that you must ask your mobile app developers to concentrate is on the app performance. The mobile wallet app should be lighter, with required features and fully optimized.

Above all, whenever you hire mobile app developers make sure to consult with him on time they will take to complete the app. Since the time you launch your app in the market is also a big break and make factor.

Download our unique guide to know how long it actually takes to build a mobile wallet app.

Author Bio — Content Marketing Expert at Innofied has a strong interest in growth hacking. Moumita is having 7 years of industry experience and helps to optimize and promote B2B/B2C businesses with latest content trends. She keeps her circle updated with the latest content feeds from Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook etc. When she is not blogging or digging out content marketing tactics, she is found relaxing with her Kindle over a cup of coffee.

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A No-Confusion Guide to Build a Secure Mobile Wallet App in 2018 was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.