Does iPhone Lack Of NFC Hurt Future Of Mobile Wallet?

Apple makes decision to not include NFC chip in latest phone.

The future for NFC and Mobile Payments has a variety of different companies involved. And here in the US, Isis seems to have a lead over other competitors by signing up Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile for their services. This association should further the future for the Mobile Wallet and the use of your mobile smart phone as a way to make payments. The process has been slowly making its way towards the mainstream process. But the release of the iPhone 5 without the necessary Near Field Communications (NFC) chip threatens that future. It would seem Apple has, with the omission, impacted the forward progress of NFC because of their popularity in the US.

Does this mean that NFC payments are going to be delayed? The answer to that is Yes, but the question of just how much it will be slowed is unknown. There is the possibility that Bluetooth could be configured to handle mobile payments for the iPhone. But for now that options does not exist. It makes one wonder why Apple decided to not include the NFC chip in their phone. Just as they did a year ago when they did not include the 4G LTE chips in the iPhone 4S, it appears they believe that NFC is not yet ready for prime time. Given they do extensive research, they are probably right and a year from now things may be more settle.

Even the Olypmics decided not to use Mobile Payments because they were not fast enough in processing transactions. That would tend to indicate that there is far more work to be done to move Mobile Payments and NFC into prime time for consumers.
In a survey by CreditDonkey.com, it seems that people are not yet ready to completely trust the idea of the Mobile Wallet. There is more of a trust in making credit card payments to Amazon (60%) over others with PayPal coming in second at 30%. Payments to Google and Bing with a credit card rate quite low in the survey.

While a large percentage of people use their smart phone to price comparison shop, it is a big leap from that to using your smart phone to make a purchase. And it does not look like that situation is going to change over the next year. The shift in being confident in using a smart phone and a Mobile Wallet is going to take far longer than realized. Things should have been mainstream at the beginning of the year, but that has not happened. And there are still too many players fighting for a piece of the action and standards still to be completed. It definitely looks like a year from now is more realistic.

Do you trust the idea of a Mobile Wallet?

Will Mobile Payments Have Slow Adoption In The US?

Based on a recent survey, people are concerned about privacy.

 
Mobile payments have been in the news this week as reports of various organizations are talking about rolling out mobile payments through the use of your smart phone. More phones are beginning to arrive with NFC (Near Field Communication) chips contained in them. Rumors have the coming iPhone 5 as containing the NFC chip. In the US, that means that by the end of the 3rd quarter, the majority of new smart phones will contain NFC chips for utilizing mobile payments. One of the big players in this was believed to be Google and their Google Wallet which has been in the news with the Galaxy Nexus and Verizon conflict. Unfortunately, things have slowed down and competition from Isis which has the support of several wireless carriers here in the US is causing confusion as to who is the leader. There are all the competing methods and some fighting to stop them in the European Union.

We talked about mobile payments being part of your strategy as it looks like 2012 is going to be the year we finally see wide spread roll out into the market. Credit card companies are also embedding chips in the cards for mobile payments as well. There are growing signs that it is going to happen in the US and around the world as well. So, why have we not been seeing a faster adoption rate here in the US? There may be an answer to that question as a result of a recent survey done by the University of California at Berkeley.

It would appear that the idea of tracking someone's purchasing habits or location are becoming an obstacle to the adoption of mobile payments. We all remember the big uproar when it was revealed that some wireless carriers here in the US were tracking people's actual location via cell towers. People like their privacy. You then add in all the hacking which has been done over the past year exposing names, address information, emails and other personal information. People here in the US are sensitive to the potential exposure of more information through the use of mobile payment systems used via smart phones.

We found that Americans overwhelmingly oppose the revelation of
contact information (phone number, email address, and home
address) to merchants when making purchases with mobile payment
systems. Furthermore, an even higher level of opposition exists to
systems that track consumers’ movements through their mobile
phones

While this survey was actually sponsored by Nokia, there is apparently valuable information here which those wanting to handle mobile payments need to pay attention to. There are a large number of benefits from moving to mobile payment systems and predictions of them replacing the use of currency have been circulating. But, it is the idea that some company or marketer may know your buying habits or movements through the use of mobile payments is an issue. This is what has people very concerned about this coming change in technology.

We are bombarded with phone calls from people trying to sell you something, get you to take a survey or donate money to some cause that has people weary of other intrusions. These are on our home phones. Since mobile payments via your smart phone provides the people handling the processing of information access to personal information, such as your mobile phone number, it has many concerned. I have tried to not give out my cell phone number because I do not want to get the same type of calls I get at home. I do not need someone calling my cell phone asking me to take a survey. And that is the potential with all the personal information which is potentially exposed each time that you make a purchase.

Existing "Do Not Call" lists do not stop this potential because of the "existing relationship" loop hole in the law. While I want to take full advantage of mobile payments once things become more widespread here in the US, my concerns about my privacy are something I worry about. There are probably a lot more people who are more than concerned and will hesitate to make a decision to use NFC as a payment method using their smart phone. The privacy issues have not been talked about much and we can hope that this recent survey raises this topic up and is addressed.

You can download the UC Berkeley report and read it for yourself.

Are you concerned about possible exposure of personal information through the use of mobile payments on your smart phone?