Near Field Communication technology has taking the pre-eminent position for mode of payment information exchange for the time being. Development and refinement of alternatives will certainly displace this “standard”, but for the time being there will likely be increased adoption of the NFC method. However, the author rightly points out that consumers are increasingly dictating how they would like to transact, and retailers will need to be responsive.
Having a POS system in place with multiple options of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and NFC means the system is phone agnostic and can operate outside the walled gardens of Apple’s NFC technology. This makes it a far better proposition for retailers. It is not only cheaper but faster, and less time paying means shorter queues at the tills.
Systems that coordinate contextual location information from a personal device with biometric markers would advance the quest for the frictionless transaction grail. Recently I reminisced on the now sidelined Square scheme for payments wherein my device and the retailer’s device both recognized I was in the store, and I as the consumer simply acknowledged the transaction. Experiments with facial recognition and voice-prints will certainly play a role as contextual authentication becomes necessary.
Overview by Joseph Walent, Senior Analyst, Emerging Technologies at Mercator Advisory Group
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