Below is a short brief from a recent guest post I had the opportunity to write for TechCrunch.

“Is that a Windows phone?  Uh, sorry about that…. we only accept payments from Apple devices.”

The absurdity of the above statement is crystal clear.  Basic transfer of money from one party to another in exchange for goods and services shouldn’t be this exclusive.  Yet, this is where we find ourselves today.

Did we just unveil the new “we don’t accept American Express” of our generation?

Closed and restrictive payment systems don’t expand economic prosperity, they hinder it.  Recent articles questioning if we really need NFC payments, and the lack of democratized payment systems highlight how far we are from a mobile payment utopia.

In this utopia, I see a democratized world where the device you have in your hand doesn’t determine if you can pay for your daily sandwich.  Mobile payments needs to grow up significantly if it’s going to be worth more than a trillion dollars by 2016…

Read the entire piece on TechCrunch.