The world is changing rapidly in the Internet Age, from the ways we communicate to the ways we choose to engage, and it’s not just the technology that drives these changes. We use mobile devices, tablets, laptops, (and now watches!) to find our news, our entertainment, our escapes, and our connections. But is it the devices themselves that have created these new ways to engage? Or have the ways in which we choose to use these devices dictated the changes? In the payments space, it seems clear that it’s the latter.
The millennial generation, or “Millennials” with a capital “M,” is the first generation growing up with smartphones and smart-devices of all kinds, and they intuitively understand the limitless possibilities they provide. Don’t want to wait in the middle of a city street to flag down a cab? Call an Uber on your iPhone. Need a nice getaway for the weekend? Airbnb on your Android. Or maybe just a HotelTonight? And how are all of these found, reserved AND paid for? In more cases than most people realize, through mobile devices – and powered by
PayPal. There was a need (read: opportunity) to simplify these and thousands of other experiences and the tech-savvy younger generations have found ways to seize those opportunities - much to the delight of millions upon millions of smartphone and app-loving users.
But let me get back to that part about PayPal powering it all. If we look at the success of the mobile app world, it’s about removing friction and simplifying daily tasks, and most of those experiences involve payments at one point or another. So it makes perfect sense that PayPal, the leader in digital payments online since 1998, has stepped in to provide the same type of security around these new seamless interactions, from buying new clothes, to putting gas in your car, to paying your friend back for the five or ten bucks they lent you last night for pizza. And it’s in this space that things get really interesting. And fun.
I was with my wife’s family over the holiday last week, and I asked my twenty-something year-old sister-in-law if she’d ever used
Venmo. “Oh, yeah. All the time.” When I asked why, she told me that all of her friends have the app, and that it was fun and easy. And that’s a very popular sentiment about the P-to-P payments app that is now a verb (as in “Just Venmo me what you owe me”), it’s fun and easy. A couple of twenty-somethings wanted an easy way to pay each other back, and they wanted some fun added in, maybe a social element, and that’s how the juggernaut, Venmo, was born. Millennials want the ability to do everything from their device-of-choice, and they want a fun, social element tied in. So by paying your friend back for pizza - with a pizza emoji that gets posted to your Venmo social feed - Millennials have found the quintessential app to speak to their needs and wants. They get to manage their money in responsible ways, but they can do it with a wink and a smile - literally, in emoji-speak!
And if Millennials are happy paying socially with their friends for pizza, drinks, rent, utilities, etc… is it really hard to believe that the same will soon be seen across all types of payments? The new generation has defined the behavior they aspire to and the solutions have come. You don’t need to create a marketing campaign to try to force a new behavior or way of thinking, those things happen organically. And when they do, they grow strong roots that can support a movement. The (younger) people have spoken, and if you recognize the debt we all owe them, you can just Venmo them your share.