The near future will bring an influx of smart devices connected to the Internet. The amount of transactions between consumers and devices, and even more important between devices will grow exponentially. This will create a need for (instant) financial settlement of transactions on a much larger scale than the current payment market handles.
Micro-payments for micro-services, instant settlement between software appliances anywhere on the globe, and machines holding their own payment deposits have not been anticipated within the traditional banking infrastructure. Transactions are too expensive, settlement is not firm and machines cannot have a bank account.
There will be an estimated 25 to 50 billion Internet Connected Devices by 2020. Even if only 5% of these devices perform an average of just 5 transactions a month, some 100 billion transactions will be processed yearly. This is in the same order of magnitude as total number of card transactions.
Key Takeaways: