They Might as Well Call It NFCeasy

When you compare the various mobile payment channels, microSD and SIM have their strengths. But clearly NFC’s strength is how easy it is. And it is getting easier.

Yesterday, a startup, Tagstand, was launched last June to facilitate the mass, cheap distribution of NFC tags. (Demo here.)

In Germany today, the nation’s rail system took an NFC step forward:

System Touch & Travel, integrated e-ticketing service will be deployed throughout Germany in early November 2011. Designed by the German state rail company, it will allow the Germans to use their mobile phones equipped with NFC chips to pay for their tickets to travel to the terminal or “ticketless” by registering at baseline and at the finish to public contact points installed in the stations.

And then there is the NFC in a shoe that while on the surface seems silly, hints to the profound potential and adaptability of NFC.

Here at Bank Innovation, we focus on the banking implications — rather than the fashion overtones — of NFC, and they are profound. 

While I share the security concerns of NFC vs. microSD and SIM, the flexibility — literally — of NFC is fantastic. And cheap and easy is good, when it comes to consumer adoption. We’ve heard the applause for Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and how that deal could facilitate NFC in millions of new cell phones. But it will be the pervasiveness of NFC beyond just mobile phone devices that could truly propel it to the winner’s circle of consumer adoption. Will it happen? Who knows, but Tagstand, Kovio and other startups portend an NFC-rich world.