We also work with Visa. Just recently we have been working with a number of our teams here on some really interesting briefs and we came up with some great insights and ideas about people & money & technology.
Bear with me here.....
Next Great Thing recently posted an article about Near Field Communications and a subject that is very dear to our heart. We talked about this before. Thinking about the iPhone & Visa we wanted to touch on the subject again. Ignition wholeheartedly agrees with NGT. The majority of the wording below comes from them but with our additional commentary...We really hope Canada picks up the pace on this!
In certain parts of Asia, you can pay for taxi cabs, take public transportation, and make purchases at convenience stores with a wave of your mobile phone. Now mobile banking is finally making strides Stateside.
The use of integrated NFC (near-field communication) chips in phones—the same that are in those contactless credit/debit cards like Chase Blink—make carrying a wallet obsolete. A new analysis of NFC mobile payments from Juniper forecasts that its value will exceed $75 billion globally by 2013, when 20% of all phones shipped will possess NFC capability. According to Mobile Marketer, a host of large brands, including banks, carriers, handset manufacturers, retailers and fast food chains, have partnered to make contactless payments via mobile phones a reality in the United States, most likely by the second half of 2009.
“By Christmastime 2009 you’ll be able to buy an NFC-enabled handset with mobile wallet software already installed and go to any of those stores with contactless readers to make a payment by tapping or waving your phone,” said Mohammad Khan, founder/president of Vivotech, Santa Clara, CA.
RFID contactless readers are becoming more and more pervasive, and you may have tapped them with your bank card in drug stores, fast food chains, gas stations, even taxi cabs. The new step is the software in the phone, which can then use the same reader.
Nokia will have 15 different handsets equipped with NFC chips by the end of the year, with Samsung, Kyocera and Motorola all releasing versions in the near future., AT&T, Sprint and Cellular South are all running pilot programs using the technology (c'mon Rogers & Bell!!!)
A concern arises in regards to such an advancement, imagine when losing your cell phone means the next person who finds it possibly has access to your bank accounts. But these services not only make the line move faster, but can be more secure as well. Says Khan,
“Nobody can replicate the data or counterfeit a contactless card, because it’s all based on the highly secured contactless computer chip embedded in the card, which has a secret key algorithm that changes the three-digit CVV/CVC code for each purchase.”
But in terms of authentication technology, Asia has its finger on the pulse—literally. In partnership with AuthenTec, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, has developed the FOMA F1100 phone, which has an integrated fingerprint sensor that protects not only the capability to make mobile payments, but any access to the phone’s stored information.
Mobile wallets not only make lines move faster for consumers, they can reduce the bottom line for them as well. We’re talking hyper-targeted promotional offers that would be very easy to implement. With the addition of mapping systems on phones now, say, Google Maps it would be very easy to get local. Imagine (after having opted-in) being pinged on your phone about a special at a McDonalds restaurant that the phone knows is close to you, going to the McDonalds and paying for the meal (or maybe it's a coffee) just by tapping or waving the reader with the very same phone. No cumbersome wallet or scrambling around for change & definitely no Interac. Great value for you as a customer and very cost effective to implement for the marketer. Very Cuil.
What do you think?
