When we talk about NFC technology, we often hear the term mentioned in reference to mobile payments. But even though the tech world is enamoured with the idea of being able to quickly and easily carry out financial transactions from our smartphones, mobile payments have actually been very slow to take off.
Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
There are enough alternative contactless payment methods on the market already, so consumers haven’t been as quick to adopt NFC handset payment methods as many vendors would have hoped. This is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of businesses aren’t keen on upgrading to NFC terminals until more consumers come on board, which has effectively created a catch-22, slowing down adoption of NFC for mobile payments.
Interoperability Issues
There are also issues with interoperability that have plagued the contactless payment sphere. For instance, unlike contactless cards, the Android OS does not generate a unique ID. Therefore, using NFC handsets as a card emulator would require the cooperation of many hardware supply chain partners, and getting all partners to cooperate is not necessarily easy.
Apple Reluctant to Adopt NFC Technology
Apple’s reluctance to adopt NFC technology is no big secret—even the NFC-enabled iPhone 6 only works with Apple Pay. Not having a smartphone giant like Apple on board is posing a major barrier to more widespread adoption of the technology among consumers.
However, mobile payments are not the be all and end all of NFC technology. Far from. Despite the barriers facing both consumers and vendors in the mobile payment sphere, the Global NFC Transaction Market is still expect to grow at a CAGR of 47.47 percent from 2015-2019.
Automate Your Life with NFC
A lot of this growth comes down to all the other applications for NFC. We can’t forget that we live in an intensely lazy society, and if there’s a chance to somehow cut out a step, simplify or streamline a process then someone will figure out how to do it. This is where NFC really shines, since it allows anyone with an NFC-enabled smartphone to fully automate their life with a few strategically placed tags.
A lot of the cool hacks outlined in the articles above rely on NFC tags to work. However, more and more consumer electronics are getting the NFC treatment, meaning that pretty soon you won’t even have to use tags to get your phone talking to all your gadgets.
A few recent examples of vendors stepping up their NFC game include:
- Sony’s SRS-BTV5 Bluetooth speaker, which boasts one-touch NFC technology to pair devices and stream music
- Panasonic’s LUMIX DMC-LF1GN-K camera that uses NFC to connect easily with smartphones and tablets
- LG’s NFC-integrated appliances.
And with penetration of NFC-enabled handsets expected to boom to more than 81 percent by 2019, all these smart devices and appliances will be able to easily communicate with our smartphones via a simple tap.
