Tag: nfc mobile payments

NFC technology based mobile payments to be tested for iPhones

| January 12, 2013

nfc technology appleU.S. Bank has announced that it is starting a trial in Portland and in Salt Lake City.

FlexPerks Visa cardholders in Portland, Oregon and Salt Lake City, Utah are being offered a new opportunity from U.S. Bank, in which they can try out a new mobile payments opportunity based on NFC technology.

This opportunity to try the mobile payments product is specific to individuals who have an iPhone 4 or 4S.

Though neither of these devices is enabled with NFC technology, customers who sign up for the program will be shipped a special case created by DeviceFidelity that will allow them to use their iPhones in order to make a purchase at the checkout counter of participating merchants. U.S. Bank explained that its introduction of the service is to be considered a beta release for account holders with the new FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature card (and an appropriate model of the iPhone).

The NFC technology mobile payments service will be rolled out more broadly later in 2013.

The DeviceFidelity case will provide multiple benefits to the iPhone 4 and 4S device users who receive it. It will not only enable them with NFC technology – a capability that is absent in all Apple smartphone models – but it also contains an additional battery in order to extend the length of the charge of the device.

This is not only convenient in addition to the NFC technology chip, but it also provides the user with the added peace of mind of knowing that they have better odds of completing their purchase transactions without running out of power.

According to the U.S. Bank Payment Services chief innovation officer, Dominic Venturo, “We have incorporated all of the feedback we have received from prior pilots and our customer research into this latest offering and we are excited to offer U.S. Bank Go Mobile in these two markets.”

Though DeviceFidelity is among the more obvious partners in this venture, as it is the provider of the NFC technology cases, there are others involved in this project, as well. For example, Visa will be providing its PayWave tech in order to receive the contactless payments at the checkout counters of the participating merchants. Moreover Datacard Group will be securely issuing and provisioning the accounts.

Mobile payments are predicted to overcome their rough start this year

| January 7, 2013

Mobile Payments to overcome rough startThough there were a number of missteps throughout 2012, many believe 2013 will turn things around.

Last year, many of the players in the mobile payments industry had expected the use of smartphone wallets and similar services to take off, but the actual figures fell far short of the mark.

This year, experts in the industry believe that 2013 will represent a major turnaround in this area.

That said, the experts don’t believe that it will be Google, Isis, and the other joint venture mobile payments wallets that will take off this year. Instead, the attention is turning toward the banks that have been lining up to make their own way into the world of smartphone transactions.

This opinion is shared among a panel of 200 mobile payments industry experts.

This panel is made up of industry executives, insiders, and developers, who all share the belief that 2013 will be the year that is the most compelling for consumer mobile payments applications. They also stated that social networking and location apps will play an important role in the industry as a whole.

The results of a recently conducted survey by Chetan Sharma Consulting have shown that mobile payments and mcommerce will not only take off, but the power behind them will not be the traditional internet players. Instead, it will be the traditional financial companies.

According to the participants in the survey, they feel that Google, carriers, and the various popular new startups such as Square have had their chance to appeal to consumers and make it big, but that as a whole, they failed to make the impact that they had been hoping to make. Instead, it is the turn of the large credit card companies (such as Visa and MasterCard) and the banks and other established financial companies (such as PayPal) to step in and clean up the damage that was left behind.

It is those companies, said the survey participants, who will make the largest difference in mobile payments, and that will offer consumers the mobile security level and the type of services that they have been waiting to see before taking part.