Comms Council calls for swipe-to-pay technology in mobile phones
The Communications Council is calling on mobile phone manufacturers to incorporate Near Field Communications services in its handsets, enabling a swipe-to-pay type technology.
The announcement:
September 27, 2011 –
The Communications Council believes Australia has a major opportunity to become a world class innovator in NFC (Near Field Communications) services – a technology becoming more omnipresent in Mobile phones and other swipe to pay systems. Despite some handset manufacturers holding back NFC technology in mobile phone models in Australia, the Communications Council believes the time is right for manufacturers to incorporate NFC in all future handsets.
This might be a nice idea except for the fact that a large number of small purchase buinesses don’t even have EFTPOS so what makes people think that they would sign up for the technology needed in order to process the customer’s “swipe”? Coming from NZ where it is nearly a cashless society I was really shocked to find that many cafes and corner stores in Sydney don’t take cards in any form and rely solely on cash. These are the types of businesses which are ideal for NFC or RFID payment options but it takes investment normally on the part of the retailer.