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Posts tagged UK
Nokia: NFC oyster payments mainstream by 2012
2 years ago
Nokia is pushing for NFC (Near field communication) tech inside mobiles, hard. It wants to get you casually swiping your handset over a payment point, Oyster card style, to wirelessly pay for train trips, snacks and more, and now it says the kit will be standard by as soon as 2012.
Nokia needs to up its game in a big way next year, but one tech area it’s good to see Espoo leading the way in is mobile NFC tech, so you can use your phone as a wallet to buy small items quickly and easily. We’ve seen it built into Nokia handsets like the 6216 Classic, and it’s a major feature of the new Symbian, but now the Finnish phone giant is talking roll out times.
Symbian getting Oyster tech built in!
As part of that roll out, Nokia will launch the kit across a range of its phones as soon as next year, a source told the publication. “In Q3 and Q4 of next year we will see Nokia going into NFC in a big way. They will be bringing forward a lot of phones with embedded NFC,” the source claimed.
This is the first we’ve heard about a timeline for Nokia’s NFC kit shipping across its whole line, but with a new look Symbian promised for around the same time, we’re hopeful it’s the start of a resurgence for the company, design wise.
According to a report in Mobile Magazine:
Nokia Industry Collaborations VP Mark Selby told Mobile: “Nokia is anticipating multiple NFC-enabled devices, which won’t all be at the high end of the market. Our plan is to see NFC in lots of devices, not just smartphones.”
Selby declined to say when or how many NFC devices Nokia plans to launch, but said he anticipated that UK consumers will be widely using NFC devices by 2012.
One source close to Nokia said: “In Q3 and Q4 of next year we will see Nokia going into NFC in a big way. They will be bringing forward a lot of phones with embedded NFC.”
UK wants a mobile wallet …
2 years ago
from www.thefonecast.com
A few months ago someone wrote about the slow adoption of mobile and contactless payments in the UK. Now we hear that Kenya’s M-PESA mobile money transfer service has arrived in UK. Yes, m-payments are finally going mainstream in the United Kingdom. Well, sort of. Well, alright, not at all really. What’s happened is that people in the UK are now able to send money to M-PESA users in Kenya. But what about the progress of mobile payments in the UK?
Good question. As you’ve probably noticed, there’s not much big ‘mobile money’ news happening in the UK at the moment. A couple of years ago O2 ran a NFC trial with Visa – and it’s followed that up with a payment card branded as O2 Money. Masabi is doing clever things with travel tickets on mobile phones and MoBank is delivering a combined shopping and payment service for iPhone users. You can even pay for some car parks by calling premium-rated numbers or using premium-rated text messages – but that’s about it. Everything’s about niches, it seems. Can I walk into my favourite coffee shop and pay from my mobile phone? Nope, not a chance. And this is two-and-a-half years after The Times reckoned we’d all have the option of mobile paying within twelve months.
Financial services experts Auriemma Consulting Group LLC have also spotted the delay in implementing m-cash in the UK. Theyreckon it’s because no-one’s worked out a commercial model that’ll keep the mobile networks, card issuers and transaction processors all happy… and because consumers aren’t asking for it with any enthusiasm.
But there’s hope… and it’s coming from an unexpected source. This week the UK government has said smartphone applications could be used to authenticate your identity when you log in to government websites. Of course, there are also privacy and security issues here – I can’t imagine everyone would be happy running government software on their phone – but it could also kick-start consumer demand. Or am I the only person who wants to leave their wallet at home and just head out with my mobile?
Mobile & Contactless Payment
2 years ago
by admin
in Mobile Payments
The banking and mobile industries have big plans for Near Field Communication (NFC) as the mobile payment mechanism of the future. Barclaycard has been leading the way from the credit card sector forming a partnership with Orange, having previously worked with O2, and running a catchy TV advert prompting contactless cards using VISA’s paywave system.
However the reality of NFC payments appears a lot further away. The Point of Sale (POS) technology appears to be badly deployed by some of the first-phase retailers mainly made up of low-value high-volume businesses like coffee shops, fast food outlets and newsagents. The picture below typifies the deployments we’ve seen with the contactless reader hidden from sight.
[An NFC reader on its front at a popular coffee shop in London]
The customer needs to remember their card will support NFC and spot the payment device or ask the retailer. The retailer isn’t promoting the service or helping establish new customers.
Current deployment seems limited with mainstream retailers slow on the uptake. Looking at VISA’s web site provides some insight. The maximum contactless payment amount is £10 and the main advantages explained to potential retailers are speed of transaction, less till errors plus ease of installation and security. Given the incumbent payment mechanism of choice is cash, the retailer’s primary motive to move to contactless technology will be lower costs; either because contactless is cheaper than handling cash or they have so many sub-£10 card payments they can negotiate a better deal from their bank. This seems to be missing from VISA’s list of advantages. Cash may be cumbersome and error prone but it is proven and doesn’t present enough of a problem for most retailers to warrant investing in new POS equipment. This is especially true given the recession and retailers’ recent poor experiences deploying Chip and Pin. Unlike Chip and Pin, the deployment of NFC isn’t mandated by a regulator or governing body.
Until these problems are solved, the mobile industry is unlikely to invest in NFC capable handsets and technologies beyond trials for marketing or shareholder perception purposes. Telcos are well advised to focus their energies elsewhere. Helping the banking sector use mobile devices for secure Two Factor Authentication saving banks a fortune on device deployment & management or using other payment solutions addressing disintermediation in addition to sub £10 retailer transactions are just two great examples.
