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45 mobile operators announce support for SIM-based NFC [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.screendigest.com/...view.html 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • 45 mobile operators have pledged their support for subscriber identity module (SIM) based Near Field Communication (NFC) implementations in an announcement made by mobile industry trade body the GSM Association (GSMA).
  • The large existing user-base of low-cost, mid-tier, NFC-less feature phones popular in emerging markets is a prime target for this technology. However, technical difficulties have prevented the adoption of SIM-based NFC. As the SIM card slot is located behind the battery, radio signals to and from the NFC module are effectively blocked in many phones.
  • Potential applications for this technology include mobile payments, public transit access, event ticketing, secure access to buildings or vehicles, identification, and person-to-person (P2P) data sharing.
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  • The GSMA has published interoperability standards for SIM-based NFC application programming interfaces (APIs) and protocols based on the Pay-Buy-Mobile specification for secure NFC mobile payments. Such standards pave the way for the development of contactless services across a variety of devices irrespective of their operating system (OS) while providing more detailed implementation protocols for the Java and Android platforms.
  • IHS Screen Digest research indicates that the 45 operators involved in the announcement serve 50.7 per cent of the world's mobile subscriptions. Since the NFC module is embedded in the SIM card, the operators expect users to be able to use existing handsets for contactless services without the need to switch to a high-end smartphone. Users of smartphones currently lacking NFC capabilities will also benefit from this technology.
  • The 45 operators involved account for nearly 3 billion subscriptions worldwide, and include China Mobile, Vodafone Group, América Móvil, Telefónica Group, China Unicom, Axiata, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T.
  • There is also the issue of cost. IHS Screen Digest estimates current SIM-based NFC modules to be a hundred times more expensive than traditional SIM cards. This would deter most operators from venturing into offering SIM-based NFC as an option to customers in emerging economies until economies of scale bring the associated costs down.
  • It is unlikely that operators will allow third-party "over-the-top" services outside of their value chain. As the implementation of some contactless services (e.g. mobile payments, public transit) depends on a close collaboration between operators and local third-parties, it is expectable that contactless services deployments and uptake will vary greatly across markets.
  • IHS Screen Digest does not foresee rapid adoption of SIM-based NFC mobile payments. Users will likely become acquainted with the contactless technology by way of other use-cases, as NFC experiences in Asia and Europe suggest--most notably the Octopus transit and stored-value card in Hong Kong, and the London Oyster transit card.
  • If NFC payment and transit cards schemes prove successful in more locations, the likelihood that such services will be increasingly incorporated into mobile devices will also increase.
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Acer plans to launch mobile paying smartphones next year - Taiwan News Online [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.taiwannews.com.tw/...news_content.php 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Taiwan's Acer Inc. plans to launch smartphones with near field communication (NFC) technology, which will allow users to make remote bill payments and contactless payments for retail and public transport, a company manager said Thursday.
  • "Telecom operators have forecast that NFC technology will become critical for smartphones next year, and I think other cellphone makers will also regard this technology as a default function on their products by that time," said Vincent Chen, product manager of Acer's telecom business department.
  • The current Mango operating system does not support NFC technology, but the next release of the Windows mobile platform -- Windows 8 -- is likely to feature the function, Chen said.
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  • However, he noted that Taiwan's market environment is not yet mature enough to sell NFC-enabled smartphones because the rules for payment are yet to be established.
  • "The five major operators in Taiwan are just beginning to talk about related issues, including how to build a cash flow platform and what kind of services to launch," he said. "There are still some uncertainties that will remain until next year."
  • Acer plans to sell 4,000 to 5,000 of the Allegro phones in Taiwan during the next two months, as the Lunar New Year is approaching and is expected to boost electronics sales, said Peter Shieh, vice president of the corporate account business division for Acer's Taiwan operations
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BNZ launches swipe phone wallet trial - Technology - NZ Herald News [25Nov11] - 0 views

www.nzherald.co.nz/...article.cfm 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Bank of New Zealand has launched a trial of a phone with an embedded chip that is able to make payments by swiping the phone against a card reader.
  • The three month trial is being done by 44 BNZ and Vodafone staff using a Samsung Galaxy S2 phone with a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip, similar to one used by Google in its Google Wallet trial in America.
  • The trial is using a system set up in conjunction with Visa and Paymark, BNZ said.
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  • "Think of what you carry around in your wallet today - credit and debit cards, loyalty cards, building access cards - and imagine most of that functionality on your smartphone."
  • The payment card's data is stored on a secure chip embedded into the SIM card inside an NFC enabled phone, which means triallists can replace their regular plastic payment card with their phone.
  • "What we're testing here is the viability of a true, mobile wallet that will eventually allow people to replace multiple pieces of plastic with functionality embedded inside their phone. It's going to make smartphones even smarter," said Paul Tait, BNZ's Head of Channels Innovation.
  • "This just the beginning of what we can bring to Vodafone customers," said Zac Summers, Vodafone's Chief Strategy Officer.
  • Triallists can use an app on their smartphone to view their transactions, which are updated in real time.
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NZ #NFC trial launched by BNZ and Vodafone - The Wall - Innovation and strategy in card... - 0 views

blogs.terrapinn.com/...fc-trial-launched-bnz-vodafone 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • iTnews is reporting this morning that the Bank of New Zealand has begun a Near Field Communications (NFC) payments trial, in partnership with Vodafone NZ and Visa.
  • The news comes quickly after the Commonwealth Bank announced its ‘Kaching’ iPhone app. Kaching will use a case over the phone to enable contactless payments, as well as allowing users to pay to mobile, Facebook and email.
  • CBA’s Kelly Bayer Rosmarin will present in Australia’s only dedicated NFC conference. To find out more about NFC in Australia and New Zealand, click here.
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British Musicians Design Augmented Reality Energy Drink Bottles @PSFK [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.psfk.com/...lity-energy-drink-bottles.html 4AR augmented reality app
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • An ad agency, several musicians, and an app developer have collaborated on Lucozade Energy’s latest campaign, creating drink bottles that launch videos through an augmented reality (AR) smartphone app.
  • Billington Cartmell, a UK ‘thinking brands’ agency, led the project to join artistic expression with an interactive brand experience. Using a the unique ability of the Aurasma app to map and track cylindrical objects, the agency asked seven of the UK’s biggest musicians to design a Lucozade bottle which when viewed through Aurasma leaps to life with video and animations.
  • A great deal of exclusive content was created for this campaign, and most of it is accessible only through the AR-enabled app. The animations that play from the bottles in the app are really only teasers, directing users to a website with documentaries and behind-the scenes video.
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  • The most interesting aspect of this project is the collaboration between three different groups to create a single brand experience centered on creativity and engagement. Two of the musicians involved, Plan B and Tinie Tempah, will promote the campaign with their massive social media following, with the hope that their ‘cool’ will spread to the client and that all involved will be seen as innovators.
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Like Dwolla, SCVNGR is Building Local Mobile Payments Groundswell With LevelUp [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...ilding_local_mobile_paymen.php 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Location-based social game mechanics are not inherently transactional. That is where the company's newest product, LevelUp comes into play. Take merchant offers, location, game mechanics and make then transactional and you have an idea what LevelUp is trying to do in the mobile payments space.
  • LevelUp is the path and it dives deep into the fundamental nature of payments, merchants and how people interact with money.
  • How Does LevelUp Work?
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  • Levelup is a mobile payments system at its core. It currently has 100,000 users across four cities (Boston, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco) with 600 merchants signed up.
  • The basic payment structure is that LevelUp provides the merchants with an Android smartphone with a QR code reader and consumers with the LevelUp app that has a personalized QR code that effectively acts as the interface to their wallet
  • Users tie their debit/credit cards to the QR code in LevelUp's app. The security behind that is what could be considered a triple-blind token system. No actual payment information is being stored on the device (unlike the Google Wallet, for instance) and there are three steps from the phone to the bank to obfuscate where the payment is actually coming from.
  • Then there are the deals and game mechanics. When merchants sign up, they are prompted to give buyers a credit.
  • The more times that people pay with LevelUp, the more opportunities for credit to be accumulated (hence, the notion of leveling up to a new offer).
  • About 45% of users return to pay full price at the merchant and users on average use LevelUp about twice per week. The location system comes in by seeing on a map in the app what merchants close to you are using the service and what kind of deals they have.
  • "With LevelUp being transactional, we wanted to make it as fundamentally simple as humanely possible," Priebatsch said. "Frankly you should never have to do anything other than just pay with it and good things should happen to you and that should make you want to keep using it."
  • LevelUp has a certain type of groundswell that other local mobile payments options do not. In that way, LevelUp's closest kindred spirit is more likely to be Dwolla than it is something like Square or Google Wallet
  • There has been talk of SCVNGR being acquired but it is more likely that the company will eventually make partnerships with other ground-swell mobile payments companies like Dwolla.
  • What LevelUp and Dwolla have done is created a local ecosystem of merchants willing to use mobile payments in their communities. This is the bottom-up approach and, as of yet, is proving to be as effective than the top-down approach taken by companies like Google and PayPal.
  • What are the pain points for mobile payments? For the consumer, it is having the app and the ability to tie it to a payments process. LevelUp cuts down on the pain points by having the ability to tie the wallet to a debit/credit card through its triple-blind token system and using QR codes.
  • According to Priebatsch, QR codes are not necessary to the process. Any interface (like NFC) will do but the QR code is working for now and LevelUp can work with any device that can project a black and white image
  • This is where Priebatsch starts to get deep into the nature of payments and the notion that money is nothing but a form of information that transfers from one point to another. Priebatsch's grand plan, that translates well to a five to 10 years down the road for the company, is to bring the payments process down to "interchange zero" where the cost of moving that information from Point A to Point B is next to nothing.
  • Here is the philosophy, according to Priebatsch:
  • People will eventually make the flow of money more and more efficient, and the cost of transferring information, or money as information, will eventually converge to zero. This concept is something that we describe as "interchange zero". And as money flows frictionless-ly, all sorts of great things happen around that. You get to pay less at the store because the business does not have to pay interchange on top of their prices.
  • The really fascinating thing with that, is that a new monetization model needs to be found for the payments industry because somebody needs to make the $50 billion dollars a year to actually support the whole thing. And I believe, and I have a game mechanics background, that the way that that money is going to be replaced, as the idea of me paying you to just move money back and forth goes away, the way that people are going to make money on payments is taking the information inherent in payments and applying a series of game mechanics.
  • To create a series of actions which get consumers to spend more and come back more often. And this help the business make more money off of each transaction. So the payment, as a utility, will be frictionless, and the money will flow to the company, enterprise, person, organization who can add the most value to the transaction."
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NFC will be incorporated into one in five smartphones by 2014 - IT News from V3.co.uk [... - 0 views

www.v3.co.uk/...-incorporated-smartphones-2014 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Near-field communications (NFC) technology will be built into one in five smartphones by 2014 as mobile payment and interactive promotions take off, according to a report from Juniper Research.
  • Over 23 million NFC-capable smartphones are expected to be in circulation by the end of 2011, said the NFC Retail Marketing & Mobile Payments report.
  • This willl rise to around 300 million by 2014, and half of these devices are expected to be active in the US.
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  • The technology is predicted to generate high revenues, explained Howard Wilcox​, senior analyst at Juniper Research.
  • "NFC-based services in North America will account for nearly $47bn, or 41 per cent of the total, by 2016. The Far East and China ($31bn or 27 per cent) and Western Europe ($23bn or 20 per cent) will follow," he said.
  • However, Wilcox warned that there are still significant infrastructure challenges, and institutions including banks and merchants will need to have sufficient point-of-sale readers installed.
  • The Google Nexus S was the first smartphone to ship with NFC technology, but the hardware has seen limited use in the UK so far.
  • Google is to start trialling NFC services in US this summer, and O2 is expected to roll out a mobile wallet application in the UK this year.
  • RIM has also backed the technology, and its forthcoming high-end devices, including the BlackBerry Bold Touch, are expected to ship with NFC.
  • HTC, meanwhile, has taken a more cautious approach, stating that it will incorporate the technology once there is established demand.
  • The iPhone 5 was tipped to feature contactless payment, but the latest reports suggest that Apple will omit NFC from its fifth-generation iPhone.
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CeBIT: O2 gearing up for NFC smartphone services in UK - IT News from V3.co.uk [01Mar11] - 0 views

www.v3.co.uk/...ing-nfc-smartphone-services-uk 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • HANOVER: O2 is to introduce new services in the UK in the coming months, including a wallet application and direct-to-bill and peer-to-peer payment facilities, as the company looks to take advantage of mainstream smartphone use.
  • The services are already available in countries such as Germany and Kenya, and will be made available to UK customers soon, according to Matthew Key, chief executive of O2 parent company Telefónica, during his keynote at CeBIT.
  • "Near-field communication will allow people to carry their credit card in their phone and scan transactions. This is fantastic for customers and retailers because it takes a lot of the supply chain costs out," he said.
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  • "We see ourselves being an aggregator of services and payments. As a mobile business we are uniquely positioned. Telefónica across the world has 190 million customers, and we know everyone's payment history and credit references."
  • Location-based advertising, which O2 has already started using in the UK, is also being tipped to become a "major product line" with the increasing use of smartphones, Key explained.
  • "Customers can opt to receive a voucher on their mobile phone. We know when a customer is wandering past Starbucks [for example], and can send a barcode asking them if they want to go inside and get 50p off a latte," he said.
  • "Location-based is customer specific and is win-win. The retailer benefits, the customer benefits and [O2] sits in the middle and benefits as well."
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Orange and Barclaycard launch smartphone payment service - IT News from V3.co.uk [20May11] - 0 views

www.v3.co.uk/...nch-smartphone-payment-service 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Orange and Barclaycard have launched the UK's first contactless payment service allowing customers to pay for purchases using a smartphone.
  • Orange Quick Tap allows payments of up to £15 in over 50,000 outlets around the country, including Pret A Manger, McDonald's and Subway.
  • Customers have to purchase a Samsung Tocco Lite smartphone to use the service, which is available for £55 on pay-as-you-go or free on a £10 per month, two-year contract.
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  • Customers also need an Orange credit card, Barclaycard or Barclays debit card to transfer money onto the Quick Tap app.
  • Barclaycard is touting the system as highly secure, highlighting the fact that users can opt to input a PIN every time they make a payment.
  • Using mobile phones to make payments is a natural extension of the smartphone, according to Pippa Dunn, vice president at Orange.
  • "We no longer use our mobile phones simply for talking and texting. Apps, cameras and music players allow us to use them for a lot more," she said.
  • "Orange Quick Tap is the first of its kind, a service that allows you to pay for everyday items just by tapping your phone wherever you see the contactless payment symbol. It's going to start a revolution in the way we pay for things on the high street."
  • Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, told V3.co.uk that this will be the first of many services as near-field communication (NFC) technology becomes a common feature on Android, BlackBerry and possibly Apple devices.
  • "[However], a little more work needs to be done on the service side as there are different kinds NFC approaches being used by the providers," she said.
  • There are currently 12.9 million contactless cardholders in the UK, and Barclaycard expects the new service to drive adoption.
  • O2 is gearing up to introduce NFC services during 2011, including a wallet application and direct-to-bill and peer-to-peer payment facilities.
  • Analyst firm Juniper Research predicted that NFC will be built into one in five smartphones by 2014 as mobile payment and interactive promotions take off.
  • Over 23 million NFC-capable smartphones are expected to be in circulation by the end of 2011, according to Juniper.
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RIM and Telefonica team up on NFC mobile payments pilot - IT News from V3.co.uk [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.v3.co.uk/...team-nfc-mobile-payments-pilot 3BT_NFC mobile payments digital wallet
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 25 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Research In Motion has staked its claim as a leader in the mobile payment and Near Field Communications space with the announcement of a new pilot project which will see Telefonica employees at the network operator's Madrid headquarters able to pay for goods in local retailers with their BlackBerrys.
  • The Telefonica Wallet for BlackBerry project will allow users of the NFC enabled BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Curve 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 handsets to pay by touching their device against a reader in participating stores.
  • The SIM-based NFC technology stores funds and transcation details electronically on the phone's chip while at the front end an application on the device allows user to choose which cards they want to use, as well as get account balances.
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  • The pilot is set to be rolled out to Telefonica employees worldwide and, if successful, could be a precursor to commercial services rolling out from next year, according to the network giant.
  • The news comes as Barclaycard and Visa Europe announced that the O2 arena in London will be rolling out more than 250 contactless card readers across the venue to allow users with contactless cards or NFC enabled phones to pay more quickly and easily.
  • Barclaycard and Orange in May announced their SIM-based Quick Tap payment service for NFC enabled mobile phones, starting with the Samsung Tocco Lite.
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Telefonica trials NFC payments using BlackBerry smartphones | Econsultancy [24Nov11] - 0 views

econsultancy.com/...s-using-blackberry-smartphones 3BT_NFC mobile payments digital wallet
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Telefonica Digital staff are to start testing NFC payments using BlackBerry smartphones, RIM announced in a blog post yesterday.
  • In collaboration with local banks and retailers, 350 Telefonica employees will trial the devices at its headquarters in Spain.
  • Telefonica CEO Matthew Key is quoted as saying the technology will be rolled out in several markets in 2012.
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  • The ‘Telefonica Wallet’ is enabled on BlackBerry Bold 9900 (pictured below), Curve 9360 and Curve 9380 models, allowing staff to make payments and access the company offices by tapping their smartphone against a reader.
  • The system replicates a physical wallet, allowing users to choose from a range of cards to make transactions or simply check account balances.
  • Mark Brill, CEO of Formation, warned that the test won’t mean much unless Telefonica and RIM can learn something from it.
  • Brill, who also chairs the DMA mobile council, believes the dual functionality of the Telefonica Wallet could be key to its success.
  • “Touch payments have been available in debit cards for some time but there hasn’t been a major take up. It is difficult to force new behaviours on people, you have to tie it in with something they are already doing,” said Brill.
  • Phone manufacturers would certainly have us believe that NFC is the future, and PayPal claimed today that we will be living a cash-free existence by 2016.
  • But concerns around security will be the main obstacle, and Brill says that in his experience consumers tend to be polarised into those who think NFC technology is a great idea and those who are suspicious about it.
  • But with predictions that up to 50% of smartphones could be NFC-enabled in the next three years, it may be the case that carrying cash could soon become passé.
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Starbucks launches mobile payments app - Marketing news - Marketing magazine [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/...1105810 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Starbucks, the coffee chain, is installing a mobile payment system in the form of an iPhone app into 700 of its outlets across the UK and Ireland, following a successful US roll-out.
  • The Starbucks app will be available for iPhone and iPod Touch users from 5 January and allows consumers to pay for their items through their phone with the aim to reduce transaction time by around 10 seconds.
  • Consumers who own a registered Starbucks Card, part of the chain’s loyalty programme, will be able to link the balance on their reward card to the Starbucks app.
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  • Brian Waring, vice president, marketing and category, Starbucks UK and Ireland, said: "Customers want to be served quickly, but fewer want to use cash.
  • Starbucks first launched the app in the US earlier this year across 6,800 stores, which have since processed more than 20 million mobile transactions.
  • Each consumer with a reward card will be given a unique barcode that will appear on the app and can be scanned at the till.
  • "We wanted to find a way for them to pay in the quickest way possible. Because our customers want it, we have created our own custom-built mobile payment technology rather than waiting for the near field communication technology which is currently not widely available.
  • "We're always thinking of new ways to add value to our customers and give them more reasons to choose Starbucks."
  • Starbucks teamed up with Apple in October this year to launch a digital initiative called "Pick of the week", offering its customers a free selected iTunes music track or book to download.
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UK Starbucks Customers Finally To Get iPhone App Payments [24Nov11] - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...iphone-app-payments-in-january 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Starbucks customers in the UK will be soon be able to walk into their local store, fire up their iPhone and pay for their orders via their Starbucks card, the company has announced.
  • The one-touch app, which has been available in the US since the beginning of the year, is set to launch on January 5th, allowing Starbucks card owners to link their accounts to the iPhone application and pay using the on-screen barcode in any of the 700 Starbucks locations in the UK.
  • It’s perfect for people that regularly travel without cash and regularly utilise their Starbucks card in order to pay for their coffee on the commute to work or when out shopping. With one in five customers already using their cards to pay for their cup of Joe, Starbucks is likely to see a rapid uptake in application usage.
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  • With NFC terminals and providers will working hard to finalise their offerings for the next wave of NFC-enabled smartphones, Starbucks has stolen a march on other retailers with its mobile coupons. Despite a love for queuing, we predict this app will reduce coffee shop lines and hasten the injection of caffeine into commuters all over the UK.
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PayPal Predicts No Wallets by 2016 [24Nov11] - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...ets-required-in-the-uk-by-2016 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Back in 2007, the Chief Executive of Visa Europe claimed that we could all be living in a cashless society by 2012. With that milestone fast approaching, it’s safe to assume that notes/bills and coins won’t be going the way of the dodo that quickly, but a new forecast has emerged from another giant from the finance world.
  • PayPal has produced a new report which will be released shortly – Money: The Digital Tipping Point – in which it predicts not only that consumers won’t need cash to go shopping, but they won’t need a wallet at all. And when can we expect this vision to be realized? 2016, it seems.
  • We’ve written quite extensively about mobile payment technology in recent times. Back in September we spoke with Ben Milne, founder of peer-to-peer Web and mobile payment platform Dwolla, who discussed the future of m-commerce. And prior to that, The Next Web’s Brad McCarty looked at how NFC will get its piece of the $4 quadrillion payments pie. There’s little question mobile payments will play a big part in the future of commerce. But will it completely outmanoeuvre paper, coins AND plastic by 2016?
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  • Around 45 million people in the UK use a mobile phone, and 49% of mobile users surveyed use their device to purchase products at least once every three months. But there is still a big demand for in-store purchases too, as we saw with London’s Oxford Street retailers gearing up for Christmas by introducing a number of tech initiatives to help capitalize on the growing m-commerce trend.
  • PayPal’s findings are based on interviews by Forrester Consulting with 10 senior executives from major UK retailers and other businesses, with a combined turnover of £85bn.
  • “We’ll see a huge change over the next few years in the way we shop and pay for things”, says Carl Scheible, Managing Director of PayPal UK. “By 2016, you’ll be able to leave your wallet at home and use your mobile as the 21st century digital wallet. Our vision of money is to enable you to pay for something from wherever you are, whatever device you’re on – a PC, mobile phone, tablet, games console and a whole lot more.”
  • Indeed, Scheible continued by saying that it will take another 4 years before we’ll see the real beginning of money’s digital switchover in the UK, but he stopped short of any discussion relating to a ‘cashless society’. “We’re not saying cash will disappear entirely, but we’ll increasingly use our phones and other devices rather than our wallets to pay in-store as well as online”, he says. “The lines between the online world and high street will soon disappear altogether. Children born today will become the UK’s first ‘cashless generation’. It will be completely natural for them to pay by mobile.”
  • So the real prediction here is that the uptake of mobile payment technology will increase significantly over the next 4 years – something that most people would probably agree with. But at the rate we’re currently going at, and with the likes of NFC technology gaining momentum in the micro-payment sphere, cash could be under threat sooner than we may otherwise have realized.
  • By 2016, it’s thought that UK mobile retail sales will hit £2.5bn. PayPal currently has over 14m active UK accounts, over a million of which have been used to send a mobile payment. Around the world, PayPal expects to process more than $3.5bn (£2.25bn) in mobile payments this year, five times more than in 2010.
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Starbucks launches mobile payments in stores | News | Marketing Week [24Nov11] - 0 views

www.marketingweek.co.uk/...3032181.article 3BT_NFC mobile payments
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Starbucks is launching what it claims is the high street’s first iPhone mobile app payment system after growing impatient with the rate of development of mobile NFC technology.
  • Customers with registered Starbucks Reward Cards will be able to make purchases in all 700 UK Starbucks stores using a one-click iPhone or iPod Touch app from January. It is also developing an Android app that it hopes to launch at the start of 2012.
  • The coffee chain said it “did not want to wait” for the development of NFC and it becoming mainstream. Because so few handsets are currently NFC capable, Starbucks chose to develop its own mobile payment system using iPhone apps.
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  • Brian Waring, VP of marketing and category for Starbucks in the UK, says: “There’s no doubt that mobile payments are going to be the future of shopping, but it’s not clear how it’s going to develop. We just didn’t want to wait. Ours is so simple and it enhances the whole experience for customers.”
  • It introduced the option in the US in early 2011 and claims 20 million payments have been made using the technology in its 6,800 US stores.UK customers will also be able to use the app in international Starbucks stores that offer the capability as it updates to give the cash balance in the local currency.
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Africa Mobile Market Now Second Only to Asia - 1 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...ca-mobile-market-now-secon.php 1UE_NS
shared by Dan R.D. on 23 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The first GSMA Mobile Observatory report to focus on Africa has come back with some fascinating conclusions. First among them, Africa has passed Latin America to become the world's second largest mobile market. The global mobile association examined the 25 African countries that account for 91% of mobile use (calling them the "A25"). Here are some of the most interesting of the report's conclusions.
  • The report "integrates data from a wide range of existing sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the African mobile industry. These include public sources such as the ITU, World Bank and research by National Regulatory Authorities as well as commercial providers such as Wireless Intelligence, Informa, Gartner, Buddecomm and ID." Africa now has 620 million mobile connections, passing Latin America Regional penetration has risen from 2% in 2000, to 57% this year Over the last decade, the number of mobile connections has grown an average of 30% per year, forecast to reach 735 million by the end of next year Mobile provides 3.5% of African GDP Highly competetive sector has resulted in price decreases of up to 60% in some areas, with an overall average of 18% decrease in the last year 96% of is pre-paid with voice services currently dominating, however data is increasing rapidly - Kenya data revenues, for instance, including SMS, have increased at a 67% annual growth over the last 4 years, representing 26% of total revenues in that country
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Deceivers.com » Ipad - A Kindle Onslaught, For Real? - 0 views

www.deceivers.com/ad-a-kindle-onslaught-for-real 1UE_NS tablets
shared by Dan R.D. on 23 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • iPad is not exactly an e-reader. It is a hybrid that hovers between a cellphone, a computer, and in some unbelievable respects, an e-studying device. What it does precisely, no one can somewhat pin down. It houses a formidable instrument that may do anything else from enjoying top definition movies to providing an outstanding gaming console and, smartly, everything else in between. E-studying capabilities included. In the beginning look, iPad seems to run away as a winner in lots of things. But if pitted in opposition to Amazon’s Kindle, does it even stand an opportunity?
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BBC News - Secret net Tor asks users to sign up to cloud services - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...technology-15834476 1UE_NS
shared by Dan R.D. on 23 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The Tor developers are calling on people to sign up to the service in order to run a bridge - a vital point of the secret network through which communications are routed. "By setting up a bridge, you donate bandwidth to the Tor network and help improve the safety and speed at which users can access the internet," the Tor project developers said in a blog.
  • "Setting up a Tor bridge on Amazon EC2 is simple and will only take you a couple of minutes," it promised.
  • Users wishing to take part in the bridging project, need to be subscribed to the Amazon service.
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  • It normally costs $30 (£19) a month. However, Amazon is currently offering a year's worth of free storage as part of a promotion, which Tor developers believe their users will qualify for.
  • Amachai Shulman, chief technology officer of data security firm Imperva believes that cloud services could have a big impact on Tor. "It creates more places and better places to hide," he said.
  • Tor is also used by people wanting to share images of child abuse. Hacktivist group Anonymous recently launched Operation Darknet which targets such abuse groups operating via the network. "There is an ugly face to Tor," said Mr Shulman. "Studies suggest that most of the bandwidth is taken by pirated content."
  • Imperva research estimates that there are currently "a few thousand" exit nodes on Tor - the points at which communications reveal themselves on the wider internet.
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iPhone 5 Expected to Have NFC, Help Propel Mobile Payments - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...e_nfc_help_propel_mobile_p.php 3BT_NFC
shared by Dan R.D. on 23 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • In all the rumor-crazed lead-up to the launch of the iPhone 4S, one feature that was speculated about but never that likely was the inclusion of near field communications. Next year, when the iPhone 5 is actually, finally released, there's a very good chance it will have NFC, according to a report from DigiTimes.
  • Citing sources at Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturers, DigiTimes says Apple's new iPhone will be one of several devices to ship with NFC in 2012, although we expect the sometimes faulty iPhone rumor mill to churn on until the device is unveiled next year.
  • If the iPhone 5 does include NFC, it will be far from the first smartphone of its class to include the technology. In typical Apple fashion, while it may not be the trailblazer, it's sure to popularize the feature and push it toward widespread adoption. Some say the iPhone's inclusion of NFC could propel the technology's penetration from below 10% to more than 50% in just a few years.
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  • The unveiling of the iPhone 5 is still several months away, so any speculation this early in the game can turn out to be fruitless. We expect to see this particular rumor evolve in the coming months as analysts weigh in and supply chain sources leak purported details.
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Mobile Banking: Bill payment integrations to mobile wallets in Africa [13Oct11] - 0 views

mbanking.blogspot.com/...nt-integrations-to-mobile.html 3BT_NFC mobile payments Africa
shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 20 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Mobile payment solutions cover Africa with basic services including domestic remittances, person to person payments and airtime top-up capabilities.
  • All of these are only possible because of "cash-in" and "cash-out" features installed at agents. Even these are amazing on their own, but these solutions are not constrained by these basic features.
  • Many examples of integrating mobile wallets with bill payment applications can be found. This is an area that shows a lot of growth. Either deployed by mainstream brands or also by small entrepreneurs, this is an area that requires further investigation.
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  • Celpay (one of the pioneers of mobile banking in Africa) provides payment solutions for multiple billers in the countries that they operate (Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania) (Read here)
  • MTN Mobile Money recently implemented a "bulk payment" capability that allows companies to offer new payment solutions. This application is currently utilised most for the payment of salaries (Read here)
  • M-Sente (a mobile wallet provider in Uganda) recently announced the launch of MultiChoice payments. (MultiChoice is a regional payTV provider) (Read here)
  • The rate of innovation and launching new services on multiple live products in Africa is an indication of the health of the industry in emerging markets.
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