The biggest change to your wallet is set to come from a company you've never heard of.
The payment industry
Much attention has been focused on the coming revolution to the way people pay for goods and services. Whether it be the rumors of the journey of Apple (AAPL 0.85%), the efforts already exhibited by Google (GOOG +1.44%), or the remarkable success of the PayPal unit of eBay (EBAY 5.28%), many understand change is set to come.
The news wires have been abuzz about the prospect of Apple jumping into the payment industry following the company recently announcing it now has 800 million active iTunes account users, almost all of whom have credit cards.
This is in addition to the remarks from Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, during its first earnings call this year, "the mobile payments area in general is one that we've been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID... I don't have anything specific to announce today, but... it's a big opportunity on the platform."
Google itself has already launched Google Wallet, which allows for its users to pay both friends and stores. And while its vice president of product management and payments said "making money comes later," for Google in its efforts in the payments industry, it is an even clearer picture of a technology titan preparing to enter into payments.
And all of this is to say nothing of eBay's entrenched PayPal division, which processed a staggering $27 billion worth of mobile transactions in 2013 alone.
The new entrant
But the thing about the payments industry is that it isn't just consumers who dictate how things are paid for. In addition, it's the stores -- known as merchants -- who accept the payments through their terminals. As a result, those stores are the ones who would have to pay for new technology to accept mobile payments, and many are resistant to the idea.
Yet one start-up, Loop, has a patented technology that allows individuals to pay on the existing infrastructure without ever pulling out their wallets. It saves stores and consumers both time and money.
In the video below, Motley Fool contributor Patrick Morris chats with Loop co-founder and CEO Will Graylin at the TRANSACT14 conference to talk about his technology, and how it's poised to change the payment industry.
