CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

Nowadays organizations are now very concerned in generating ideas and strategies that will facilitate them to manage resources and software practise, which is as a result to an ever-rising demand for more computational power. Also, there is a huge increase in the use of online transactions comprised of contemporary e-commerce operation and millions of web queries daily from data centers which motivate modern organizations want to invent and visualize ingenious strategies to create value and have a competitive advantage. Organizations with smart moves, technology and vision develop products and services that address management of resources will enjoy a competitive edge. Murugesan, (2012). According to a survey by San and Gangadharan (2012), the global number of Internet users increased 444.8% between the years 2000 and 2010, and in June 2010, the global number of Internet users reached nearly two billions, corresponding to 28.7% of the global human population. Mobile usage of the Internet has increased its popularity dramatically, and it has profoundly changed the way how mobile terminals are used: in 2010, Ericsson announced measurements indicating that mobile data surpassed mobile voice already in 2009 and the amount of mobile data traffic is forecast to double annually over five years.

Current mobile payment initiative utilizes storage and wireless capabilities of the mobile device to store and communicate payment information respectively. Phones connect to a mobile network, which allows use of SMS and mobile internet service. The use of mobile technology is absolutely impacting the global banking and payment industry by providing ease of use to existing bank customers in developed market and also offering new services to the unbanked customers in emerging markets Sunil, (2012). Mobile payment system (MPS) is a ground-breaking application on a mobile platform that allows a user to operate different transactions and make payment using a mobile device. MPS allows registered users financial transactions to be carried out anytime, anywhere via a mobile phone and help give customers instant access to their banks. Mobile payment usage has not witnessed an explosive growth in Nigeria because of the fear of security and privacy; the Biometric Verification Number (BVN) enrolment discovered that there are about 25 million Nigerians with bank account and statistics from the Nigeria Communication commission (NCC, 2014) shows that there are about 148 Million mobile phone subscribers. This result shows that large number of the general public demand for more computational power using their mobile devices for communication as well as financial transaction. Many clients could do lots of transactions like checking account details; linking bank ATM card; bank statements; perform transactions like funds transfer, Airtime purchase and bills payment via MPS. All these transactions require response to queries from the server usually comprised of the (application, Business logic, Database and Presentation) which consequently utilizes more energy, infrastructure and resources.

Furthermore, security of transactions must be considered due to the incidence of criminal attacks ranging from fraud to mischievous destruction of mobile devices. Customers using the mobile payment system must be assured that their transactions will satisfy data privacy and security so that no third party would have access to their details without prior permission. Biometrics is a strong security mechanism especially when using fingerprints, most smart phones are embedded with optical finger print sensors for authentication and identification which captures finger print at runtime; therefore it makes the application more secured.

It is with this perspective that this project attempts to design a secure mobile payment system that would help payment system provider manage their resources and enable a client’s have functionalities that will include the application data stored on the clients device, the real-time compilation of the application and client personal settings injected into the core of the clients device. Resource management in the mobile payment system are required to minimise access to the application server to minimise the cost of resources from the client (internet) and the service provider (heavy work load on the server which consumes more power and produces heat and toxics to the environment).

Hence, to minimize the maintenance cost of computing environments, it is advisable to virtualized computing infrastructures. Cloud Computing is a service that offers storage, infrastructure, software and utility oriented IT services, in this context on demand resource and storage management is a major service such an environment should warrant. It must tolerate allocation of resources when busy or idle so as to facilitate energy efficiency and manage contents. Resource usage reduction also concerns users since efficient service is needed while utilizing the mobile payment system which uses little internet connectivity to operate. An organization could experience decrease on the costs as regards infrastructure and resources with the espousal of the technology that handles resources. Instead of investing in larger numbers of physical servers, it is also easier to manage storage between the client and the server rather than have client access the server frequently and replicate data in the cloud for storage and recovery. Therefore it is essential to ensure that the future growth of resource management is sustainable.

1.2       Statement of the Problem

Large organizations like the financial institutions have lots of massive servers as well as numerous clients. This yields to increase in server demands and hence more infrastructure and labour intensive activities for the server. Usually, if the workload on an active server is reduced then the power consumption is lower because applications and data that are accessed frequently can be cached in mobile devices which makes the server consume less power which aids resource management. Thus, there is a prospect toward Optimal storage utilization, the possibility of hosting applications and storing data on the clients device, thereby reducing the number of reserved resources for storage and also numerous request and response that is being sent and received to and from the server. Hence, the project is designed to develop a framework for payment service provider to reduce access to the server which can be adoptable by user to meet their respective demand. Therefore, if properly utilized, this approach can help organizations reduce the rate at which clients have access to the application server.

1.3       Objective of the Study

The main objective of this study is to develop a framework that allows management of resources i.e. optimal storage of some functionality on the client’s device as well as ease the rate of access to financial payment services (servers) so as to manage resources by reducing workload. The specific objectives are to:

1.      present a framework that enables proficient storage of content on client’s mobile device to facilitate resource management and

2.      develop a secure mobile payment system.

1.4       Methodology

In order to achieve the set objectives for this project, the following methodologies were adopted:

1        The interoperable framework was presented with different functional components on the mobile device and server side. This was done after the review of different frameworks.

2        The database for customer and transactions were created using SQLite, and Android Studio software was used to develop and test the mobile application.  Extreme Programming was adopted due to the fact that it focuses on providing the highest values for customers in the fastest possible way. It was designed to improve software quality and to provide quick response to changes in the customers’ requirements.

1.5       Scope of the Study

This research depicts the design of a framework for mobile payment system and the implementation of the developed framework. The study focused on how payment system provider can manage resources while meeting clients demand. This project work approaches this by simply offering the opportunity to save application and data on the client’s device. The financial transactions that were covered are limited to: virtual card top up, funds transfer, balance inquiry, online payment to different merchant and bills payment. The system will also enable multiple payment cards and have a feedback section where complains can be made.

1.6       Significance of the Study

The development of a mobile payment system framework allows the creation of having a secure and efficient mobile transaction. The framework would enable a client’s have functionalities on the mobile device so as to manage resources (content) which dramatically reduces the rate at which client request for content from the server, because high utilization of servers leads to a lot of power consumption. Thus, these results with no doubt would be very important to all concerned sectors that come across this work.

1.7       Organization of Dissertation

Chapter one is the introductory chapter of six section namely introduction, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, methodology and scope of the study. Chapter two of this research explains the concepts of resource management and payment system, review of related works, mobile payment system in Nigeria, existing applications, and many others was revealed.

Chapter three of this research describes the research methodology, research design, requirement specification, system analysis, functional and non functional requirement user requirement, and hardware requirement, the system design, flowchart, usecase diagrams, Entity relationship diagram, sequence diagrams and database will be revealed. Chapter four of this research discusses the implementation, analysis and testing of the developed system. Finally, Chapter 5 of this work gave full summary of the entire work, conclusions and recommendation for future works.

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