Near Field Communication (NFC) – the technology that supports close proximity mobile payment services – has been around for many years. However, up until recently, the NFC-enabled mobile devices and service support needed to make such payments a reality have been lacking.
In this video blog, Ryan Garner looks at the barriers to adoption, demonstrating that Trust and Familiarity of supplier brands will drive consumer preference and arguing the need for co-operation between brands from different sectors.
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To read the report article in the Free TechTalk Magazine, please click here.
NFC technology has the ability to transform smartphones into virtual wallets, where users pay for transactions simply by waving their phone at an appropriate receiver terminal. However, it also has much wider applications, allowing for synchronised content and services across the mobile ecosystem [1]. The reward for owning this relationship in the mobile space is enormous, and as a result everyone, from mobile operators to device manufacturers, is fighting for a share.
The industry message seems clear; mobile payments will be big over the next five years – big news and big profits. The technology has been around in various forms for years and, now that leading names such as Apple, Google and RIM are designing and manufacturing NFC-equipped devices, many commentators predict that mobile payments will skyrocket [2].
However, while this will undoubtedly be a major growth area for the future, such reports seldom address the fact that the journey to full consumer adoption is not without its pitfalls.
Many mobile companies and big brands are ready to launch mobile payment services this year. Although there is a healthy amount of consumer scepticism, there is also enough interest among early adopters and smartphone users to make this a success.
Last month TechTalk published a post about NFC (Near Field Communication) based mobile services becoming adopted among a wider consumer base in 2011. At the time of publishing we highlighted a number of new services and advances being made, from small start-ups to smartphone giants such as Apple, Google and Nokia. Now we’re almost one month into 2011 the news and developments on NFC, in particular mobile payments, continues to hit the headlines in the technology press. Most notably, O2[1] is beefing up their m-payments team ahead of its NFC based mobile payments service launch later this year, whilst Google announced the launch of Android 2.3 OS (Gingerbread)[2], which adds support for NFC.
