This is a guest post by Dinesh V.K.
Fast Company believes that NFC technology for mobile payments is making a stuttering start. Many players are pushing for their share of the pie. However 2012 will see NFC getting a much bigger foothold in everyday commercial transactions.
Thanks to the smart phone and the proliferation of mobile devices. NFC (Near Field Communication) has become a viable means of transferring data between two enabled devices for various purposes. One of the first applications has been in electronic payment, which has shown great potential and futuristic style.
How NFC works
NFC technology has managed to seamlessly integrate physical infrastructure (banks, delivery services, retailers, etc.) with online entities into a viable digital ecosystem. Mobile networks and carriers are not new to commercial transactions being undertaken through wireless transmission.
Things started with the introduction of 3G technology a few years back. It started the trend with micro-transactions over the mobile phone and payments being paid along with the phone bills. NFC, the open platform technology is ready to break through and business is sure to snowball. To ensure interoperability between services and devices, 135 member companies have jointly promoted the NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association.
Such mobile commerce through the networks has brought banks, retailers and merchants together along with advertisers and marketing services, to connect with consumers on a personal mobile platform. The NFC eco-system will be able to generate a steady stream of consumer information and data. Thus analysis can yield reports on preferences, trends, security issues, consumers and demographic analytics.
Using this standards based connectivity technology, today’s diverse contact-less technologies can give great convenience to consumers to make transactions, transfer or exchange content, connect devices and all just with a tap. So users of NFC need not carry cash, reward coupons, transit passes, tickets, and credit and debit cards. Instead they carry their smartphone.
Another technology innovator, NFC-Data Inc. is offering its flagship product “padloc” which works as an e-wallet and also Point of Sale Terminal. It will be available as a limited pre-sale release from February of 2012 for early adopters, NFC enthusiasts, partners and application developers.
NFC is entering markets the world over
The mobile payment market is growing fast especially in Europe. NFC will be playing a critical role in the exponential growth being witnessed in mobile payments. NFC technology has been put into trial already in many places over the world. Poland will be using NFC technology for 2012, as four major operators including Orange, T-Mobile, Plus and Play will be following a common standard for payment services soon.
RIM is ready in Australia with NFC technology in their Blackberry phones in partnership with Tapit. RIM will be introducing into the Australian market the Blackberry Bold 9900 and Blackberry Curve 9300 with NFC. Tap this Blackberry on a device embedded with a NFC chip to quickly access information or make a payment. It works like the payment methods that allow card holders to tap their cards on a receiver as used by MasterCard’s PayPass and VISA payWave.
By updating to Blackberry 7OS, users will also bring the Blackberry Tag service enabling Australians to share content just by tapping their phones. Other smartphones that are NFC-enabled are Nokia N9 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
Google Android phones with the “Ice Cream Sandwich” operating system like the Nexus are already available for Australians that support NFC. The “Android Beam” is the tap feature that allows transfer of data. The roll-out of NFC-enabled retail outlets have begun too.
Isis has been created by a joint effort of three of the largest mobile service providers in USA- AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless. Isis is a nationwide mobile commerce network that uses the NFC technology on the smartphone, to build a country-wide mobile commerce network. Isis has got RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, Motorola, and LG committed to bring out NFC enabled devices for them.
Google Wallet will run on the Galaxy Nexus but Isis might not open up their phones to Google Wallet now, but later when things get favourable. Google Wallet was launched in September partnering with Sprint, MasterCard and Citibank.
The mobile commerce system or m-commerce will be a joint venture in the UK, by Vodafone, O2, Orange, Everything Everywhere and T-Mobile. They will be joining to start a NFC payment system through their networks.
Using NFC in a partnership, Barclaycard and Orange will provide the Quick Tap service that will enable people in the UK for the first time from November, to pay using their smartphones.
So the future is not far when your smartphone becomes not only your smart e-wallet but an instrument to unlock key-less devices and establish interoperability with numerous other systems both in the real and cyber world, in real time.
Author Bio: Blogger Dinesh V.K. writes on latest consumer products, gadgets, technology, market trends, shopping offers, free samples, politics, public sector and other services.
As much as this is great news in that it could start to get the economy ball rolling again, surely I’m not the only one in thinking that phone manufacturers will first have to improve their battery technologies? With a full charge on any given smartphone only usually lasting a day, what do you do when your battery runs out whilst shopping and all you have on you is your ‘ewallet’.
NFC certainly seems to be paving the way for the future, but I wonder what unforseen security issues this technology will raise, such as eavesdropping and data alteration.
Wireless technology is the future as our technology wiLL connect with services that we commonly use. Once wireless technology becomes more advanced, more things will be accomplished faster.
I agree that security is the number one priority on these devices. You would think that NFC as part of their press announcement, that presumably Dinesh V K used as the basis of his article would reference the wireless security issue. But it appears not to be the case?