Your smartphone could soon become your next method of payment
Posted January 26, 2011 5:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Do you keep forgetting your credit card at home but somehow are able to remember your cell phone? That problem could soon be solved with a piece of technology that can turn your phone into your wallet.
Near Field Communication (NFC) is technology that allows a phone to communicate with another NFC enabled device. It will give your phone the ability to make mobile payments by simply swiping the phone near a point-of-sale terminal able to read the device.
Duncan Stewart, the Director of Research in the areas of Technology, Media and Telecommunications at Deloitte Canada, told 680News that although this technology may not be new, it is going to be a big hit in North America.
“This will be big in the U.S., it will be big in Canada and it will be big in Europe,” said Stewart, “This technology is already being used in other geographies, most noteably South Korea and Japan. It actually has been pretty popular for the past four or five and it’s always been a bit of a surprise that it never caught on here. But by the end of this year and certainly by the end of 2012 this will be pervasive.”
According to Stewart, the cost to install NFC chips has dropped enough that phone manufactuerers have been able to install them even before mass market use has become wide-spread.
“People have wanted this kind of technology, but until phone makers put the chips inside, consumers couldn’t use it. And because consumers couldn’t use it, retailers couldn’t put the readers in.” said Stewart.
That may soon change.
The Nexus S smartphone already has NFC, and there is talk the technology will be included in RIM’s 2011 Blackberry lineup as well as the next generation of iPhone’s.
With NFC becoming more and more common, Stewart is predicting that by the end of the year retailers will need to respond by installing readers and accepting mobile payments.
NFC technology could one day be used to replace personal ID and do things like book flights.
“It will happen one day but it will be much slower.” said Stewart, “All of a sudden you get into privacy issues, and what happens if you lose it? …As encouraged as I am by this and expecting to see it in many stores by the end of the year, in terms of using (NFC) for identity purposes, that’s something that is a little further out. About 5 to 10 years.”
