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New NFC-Enabled Phones Will Not Have Immediate Impact on Mobile Wallet Growth

September 7, 2012
Credit|Debit|Prepaid|Emerging_Technologies
Samsung, Sony and Motorola all have announced new NFC-enabled phones. But the phones, however, at the time of their release will not support NFC point-of-sale payments such as Google Wallet and Isis. In addition, while the highly anticipated Apple iPhone 5 is rumored to include NFC technology, those rumors have been neither confirmed nor denied by Apple themselves. In other words, this influx of new phones with NFC capabilities will not provide any benefit to Google Wallet as they try to expand their influence.

Currently, both the telcos and Google (as the developer of the Android OS) have placed the focus of discussions surrounding NFC on non-payments capabilities.

From a PaymentsSource article:

"In the near future, all smartphones will have NFC, but not just for payments," [David Kaminsky, analyst for emerging payments with Boston-based Mercator Advisory Group] notes. “Google currently promotes NFC, which in Android phones it calls 'Beam,' in advertisements that show people sharing photos wirelessly,” Kaminsky says.
Beam can also be used to share maps, links, and contact information between two NFC-enabled mobile devices. It is apparent that these will be the first uses for NFC, while payments will be formally promoted at a later date.

Click here to read more from PaymentsSource.

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