NFC - is it about to take off?

Harnessing Near Field Communications technology could be the key to mobile phones becoming the standard device for everything that is now undertaken with other payment and authority cards. Has its moment now arrived?

Ralph Adam

02 June 2011

Contactless card payment has been trialed for bus journeys in the UK but mobile NFC ticketing has yet to be generally adopted.

More and more posters are now carrying a phone readable barcode to access further information. NFC will use a contactless signal instead.

Smart cards have been very popular with retailers, service-providers and users: the range of applications is constantly increasing and expanding for the debit, credit and loyalty cards that have been progressively replacing cash and cheques for the past couple of decades.

As a result, we all carry wallets bulging with cards – for season tickets, banking, shops, libraries, clubs, work access....That can be annoying – especially if they are lost or forgotten.

The dream solution...