Since the beginning of trade, humans have had issues with exchanging products and services. We started with barter and from there it grew to trading neccessities for luxuries. Gold for food is a perfect example of this. With the establishment of currency in the form of paper cash, for the first time humans now had a common level of value. After cash came checks and from their came credit cards.
Checks had their problems because they could be copied and manipulated. The first iteration of the credit card required the cashier to call a physical person to confirm they had the credit limit necessary for the purchase. Then came the ATM and the mag strip that could issue funds in a matter of seconds. BUT this too is still not good enough for humans.
Why this rapid change in the way that people get paid you ask? One word, CONVENIENCE! AND two more important words security and the internet. Consumers are now more than ever aware of fraud. If companies like Target and Neiman Marcus can be breached, why not Joe's Coffee?
There are so 
many great new applications that allow you to transfer money via the web. This whole movement started with PayPal. There was an inherent need for strangers to have a trusted system to sell used products online in a secure manner. We now refer to this as P to P.
Over the last few years new technolgies have emerged such as Venmo and Square. Venmo allows people to exchange funds almost instantly via a smartphone. Square allows merchants to accept credit card swipes with their smartphone plug-in device. The scary thing is these tools were diruptive 2-3 years ago and now anyone can build this.
All I know is payments is still in it's infancy. It will change more in the next 5 years than it has in the last 50. To hear about the next big steps in payments read my next blog!
