Wired has a fascinating new article "The Future of Money: It's Flexible, Frictionless, and (Almost) Free" which takes a look at the growing number of methods to exchange money online. Way beyond PayPal, credit card companies and the banks themselves, payment systems are coming online at a furious pace attempting to strip down the fees and dethrone the venerable stalwarts of the industry. Utilizing social sites and the opened up engines some of the largest online retailers, developers are finding new ways of exchanging cash and making it more cost effective.
It's a lengthy article but well worth the read if you are wondering how money will be exchanged in the future... and dare I say, the future is nigh!
Here's a sample:
"Whatever the future of payments looks like, it will probably be brought about by people like Christian Lanng. A tall and wide 31-year-old with a booming, operatic voice, Lanng is sitting on the couch of his venture backer’s house in Copenhagen. When he talks about the way banks and credit card companies process payments, he gets so upset that his entire body tenses and his voice rises until it’s echoing off the stark white walls. “This is the main battleground of capitalism!” he says. “This is the heart of it.”"
