Prior to the early seventies (not that I am old enough to remember) you only had two ways of paying for something: cash or cheque.Along came the credit card and a decade and a half later, the debit card. That having been said, the payment world consists of consumers paying for goods (B2C for business-to-consumer), people paying other people (P2P for person-to-person) and businesses paying other businesses (B2B for business-to-business). There may be other variations but these are the three most common.The methods of payment tend to fall into three types: prepaid, pay now and pay later. When it comes to payment technology, a lot of money is being thrown at the first two, however, I will address them all in reverse order as my focus is really on the prepaid world, specifically as it relates to B2C.Pay later, if you haven’t figured it out, is the traditional credit card world. Basically you apply for a card from your bank and after demonstrating you have the wherewithal financially to pay them back, they decide they like you and away you go, spending to a predetermined maximum limit.Of course, they are doing you a favour because you get to purchase the latest Louis Vuitton bag or that Tag Heuer watch you have had your eye on, all on their dime. That is, until you get the next month’s statement! Anyhow, you get the point.This type of payment has been around for donkey’s years and while there has been some shuffling of deck chairs, it really hasn’t changed that much.The card associations have added more security features into their products (chip & PIN, e-commerce MasterCard Secure Code, Visa Verified by Visa) and easier ways of using the card (pay pass for MasterCard) but the underlying technology and function haven’t changed and there isn’t much on the horizon to suggest that they will.Pay now is the common debit card. Basically it looks and feels like a credit card (and uses the same system back bone in many cases) but it is linked to your own bank deposit account so you can only spend what you have in your account. Again, there is not a lot going on in terms of new technology that will change this, in the foreseeable future.However, there is a lot going on in the prepaid world. Prepaid (and I am not sure why this is not called ‘pay before’ to stick with the theme) is where you, the consumer, purchase a voucher or buy ‘credits’ in advance. The use of this type of payment may make no sense to some but the obvious example of this is Apple iTunes.One purchases an iTunes card at a store using cash, credit or debit card and after logging onto your iTunes account, you ‘redeem’ the value by entering the ‘voucher number’ or ‘card code’, which then deposits the value into your iTunes account. You can then purchase anything Apple sells in their online store using your iTunes account credit.There are several others that fall into this category such as Google Wallet, PayPal, Facebook credits and Amazon payments. All of these payment methods have the same goal of disintermediation: that is, to push the traditional brick and mortar banks and card brands out of the payment/transaction process.Why you ask? Well, when you and I prepay or buy ‘credit’ with one of these providers, they are getting our money free of cost, for a period of time (hmm … sounds like a bank).This amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars which they can invest while we, the consumer, ponder what we will use the ‘credits’ for in the online market place. In addition, they receive transaction fees from the merchant when goods are purchased.After all, in 2011 there were over a 100 billion purchase transactions processed by the card associations, and while the new players have a long way to go, there is a huge incentive to tap into that market. Although it is pertinent to point out that Visa and MasterCard also have their own prepaid cards products.And then of course, there are the mobile network service providers. In sophisticated countries (mobile technology wise), paying for small items using one’s cell phone has been around for several years. I am sure many have heard of people paying for a can of soda at a machine wirelessly using their mobile in Finland and Japan, these being the more technologically advanced countries.These types of payments also use prepaid credits and require consumers to have already funded their mobile accounts to support these purchases. In addition, Visa and MasterCard have worked with technology companies to develop Near-Field-Communications or NFC. This allows consumers to store their relevant credit and debit card details in a mobile application and use the app to pay wirelessly at the point of sale instead of having to pull a card from their wallets.One simply starts the application and clicks a ‘button’, which securely transmits the card data wirelessly to the point of sale (POS) terminal. The rest of the process is more or less the same. However, the whole mobile payment discussion is very much up in the air right now and it’s anyone’s guess as to where it will end up.While PayPal was one of the first providers, having been in the prepaid payment game for over ten years, there are some new and very large players that have a ton of cash to spend and millions of loyal subscribers across the globe (e.g., Facebook with over 800 million now), so the competition is heating up.Given the global brand recognition of these companies and their subscriber base it is possible within the next ten years that you will be able to purchase everyday goods using one of their accounts.I mean, can you imagine buying groceries at Lindo’s online using your iTunes card (they always seem to be on the leading edge by Bermuda’s standards)!Personally, I think the future is exciting and while I like to use new technology I remain somewhat of a traditionalist as I still prefer having my money in a bank.Although, perhaps one day we will have the additional choice of having our salary deposited into a Google Wallet or iTunes account.Mr Viera is the COO of First Atlantic Commerce. Views and comments expressed are personal and do not necessarily represent those of Mr Viera’s employer.