Smart cities can change the way we pay

THE pace of technological developments over the past decade surpasses anything the world has seen before. Hardly a day seems to go by without news of a new innovation, many of which are impacting our everyday lives, making once hypothetical sci-fi cities an increasingly realistic possibility in this generation's lifetime. More and more governments are recognising the possibilities this entails - in cities ranging from Dublin and Dubai to Satna and Singapore - and leading the way in embracing technologies that will allow them to assume smart city status.

For the uninitiated, the Smart Cities Council describes a smart city as one that has digital technology embedded across all city functions. What this should result in is a far better provision of services, and reduced costs and consumption, allowing citizens to have an improved quality of life. We are already seeing many components of a smart city around us - the GPS system that tells you to avoid certain roads because of bad traffic or air purifier systems that turn on automatically when the haze is bad - but this is just the start.

One of the key areas where we are seeing tremendous change is the way people make and receive payments. Cash is no longer king and an increasing number of people have begun relying upon alternative payment methods over the past few decades, particularly in the developing world, where these changes are being driven by rapid urbanisation and a growing middle class. The mobile payments industry is at the forefront of this, as reflected in its growth figures which have seen an increase from 53 billion users in 2010 to an estimated 729 billion users in 2015.