Tag: nfc smartphones

Many companies are adopting this close range connectivity tech for new and surprising reasons.

Although NFC technology has been receiving the largest amount of attention due to the many massive attempts being made to introduce it to the mobile payments sphere, companies are also finding a number of other unique and helpful uses.

In fact, it is expected that payments may end up being one of the lesser uses.

At a recent large electronics show, several companies – including the event itself – applied NFC technology in a range of different ways. These chips were unveiled in numerous devices and were used for many different purposes. According to the Broadcom CEO, Scott McGregor, “NFC really simplifies things.” His company is a chipmaker that sees considerable value in this tech. He added that “The most advanced technology is stifled if it’s not easy to use. … NFC plays a very valuable role in simplifying user interfaces for consumer products.”

NFC technology is now being used for everything from payments to coupons, tickets, press releases and other data exchanges.

While the focus is primarily placed on mobile payments through NFC technology that would allow smartphones to be used at a point of sale in order to complete a purchase by tapping the device against a reader, the world isn’t quite there yet. It is still quite rare for point of sale terminals to be equipped with readers, which significantly limits the use of the chips, even among those who would be interested and have enabled smartphones.

However, recently, new consumer electronics are being launched that include NFC technology for whole new reasons. Enabled devices aren’t just smartphones anymore. Instead, they include televisions, speakers, refrigerators, cameras, and even business cards. Panasonic, for example, has added a chip to its rice cookers.

This is considerably expanding the possibilities connected with NFC technology. Clearly, it is not simply a one trick pony, and electronics companies are taking it seriously. Though many still expect that it will soon experience explosive use through smartphones, it is evident that device manufacturers of all kinds intend to try to take advantage of its benefits in many new and exciting ways.

Though 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.