Smartphones are going to reshape the way we pay for things

Target; Nieman-Marcus; Michaels. Lately, it seems that a week doesn’t go by without some major retailer being forced to inform customers that their payment systems have been compromised, potentially affecting millions of cardholders and their finances. Of course, that’s on top of the myriad scams that happen every day on a smaller scale and end up costing both consumers and businesses billions of dollars every year. As plastic has increasingly replaced cash over the years, the financial industry has worked hard to tighten its grip over payment networks in an effort to curtail fraud—obviously, with mixed results. But that’s due largely to the fact that the weakest links in the long chain of providers that make charging your credit card possible are outside of the industry’s control. In the end, the best solution to this problem may already reside in your pocket: Your phone could be the key to a truly secure way to spend your money.