Tag: nfc mobile technology

Interest group to tackle issues concerning NFC technology

NFC technology was once the cornerstone of mobile commerce. The technology helped bring mobile payments into the limelight because of its ability to facilitate quick data transfer from one device to another. While NFC technology is still a focus in some areas of mobile commerce, the industry is beginning to move away from the technology because of its relatively low adoption rate and concerns regarding its security. The NFC Forum, a trade association that developers standards for the use of NFC technology, has created an interest group that aims to explore the ways the technology can be used in the realms of mobile payments and transportation.

NFC Forum aims to promote use of technology for transportation and mobile payments

The NFC Forum has been promoting the capabilities of NFC technology, especially when used in mobile commerce, for more than a decade. The organization has established many of the standards that govern the use of the technology today. The NFC Forum has been seeing the position of the technology in the mobile commerce realm steadily diminish and has been looking for ways to encourage the continued use of the technology as a medium for mobile payments.

NFC could be very useful in the realm of transportation

The new interest group established by the NFC Forum aims to discover new ways to use NFC technology for mobile payments and for transportation. In terms of mobile commerce, the use of the technology is fairly straightforward, but the group will focus on finding ways to improve the efficiency and security of NFC-based mobile payments. The technology does have some promise when it comes to transportation, as it can be used as a storage medium for electronic tickets for various forms of public transportation.

NFC allows for use of electronic tickets

Using NFC technology, a consumer can store electronic tickets on their mobile device. When they are ready to board a plane, for instance, they can use their mobile device to present their boarding pass, removing the need for physical tickets. NFC has a variety of uses, but there exists a lack of NFC-enabled devices that enable the widespread adoption of this technology. The interest group will focus on highlighting the capabilities of NFC technology in order to encourage its adoption among consumers, businesses, and other parties.

This year will make it much easier for consumers in Australia to make purchases using smartphones.

Telcos in Australia are giving a significant kick to their intentions to bring mobile payments to consumers throughout the country so that they will be able to use their smartphones or tablets to pay for products or services at a store’s checkout counter.

This could be the first step toward making credit cards obsolete within the country.

Although mobile payments are a move that has been in the works for several years and very little action has actually been seen until very recently. Even the most recent steps have not been enormous, and the term “contactless payments” remains unknown to the majority of consumers, even among those whose devices are capable of the transactions.

Though the contactless mobile payments concept has great potential, it has been failing to gain traction.

The idea behind mobile payments is quite simple. It involves using a smartphone or tablet that is either waved over an enabled reader at a point of sale in a store, or tapped against it. This automatically transfers the funds necessary for making the purchase from the user’s credit card or bank account, into the account of the store.

The primary barrier faced by this type of mobile payments is the fact that only a small percentage of smartphones are actually enabled with the necessary NFC technology (near field communication) that allow these transactions to occur. This was held back even further by the release of the iPhone 5 by Apple, which shocked the mobile world when those chips were notably absent.

Vodafone and Telstra believe that this year will mark a difference in this trend. They believe that with many more NFC technology enabled devices entering the marketplace, it will represent a brand new opportunity for mobile payments to take off.

According to Dr. Hugh Bradlow, the chief technology officer at Telstra, “It’s been promised for a long time, but by next year many devices on the market will incorporate near field communication.” He went on to explain that in the mobile payments marketplace, “NFC has been a slow burn, but it will likely become entrenched next year and we plan to be a big part of that.”