New technical specifications for "near-field communication", released last week by an international rules-setting body backing the technology, should add momentum in the U.S. to the trend toward contactless payments on mobile phones. The new specifications lead the way for phones to piggy-back on infrastructure built for smart chips and atennae.
Excerpted from Digital Transaction News:
With standards beginning to fall into place, it should be easier for more vendors to begin supplying compliant devices that can opera across multiple programs, Michielsen says. “That will fuel the market” for NFC-based contactless payments because more vendors will mean more pilots, he says. As important, he points out, the standards help ensure so-called backward compatibility, meaning NFC-enabled handsets will work as payment devices with existing contactless readers, most of which now receive transactions from credit and debit cards embedded with chips and antennae . “People always ask, ‘Where’s the installed base, where can I use [NFC]?’” says Michielsen. “You can piggyback on the existing card-based infrastructure.” As a result, he says, the number of U.S. locations accepting NFC-enabled devices will reach 55,000 by year’s end, up from around 25,000 contactless locations now.
ISOs And NFC Specs Lend Impetus to Contactless Payment Trend
Digital Transaction News
June 8, 2006
See also these recent posts on contactless payments:
