In its new report, Juniper Research is looking at the prospects of contactless mobile payments, forecasting that more than 1 in 4 of US and Western European users will use their NFC-enabled mobile phone to pay for goods in-store by 2017, which is up from 2% this year. Worldwide, more and more NFC payment pilots are being launched, with transitioning to full commercial service being spearheaded by both mobile network operators and financial institutions.
According to Juniper’s findings, the ability to “tap” an NFC phone against a POS terminal to make a purchase has tremendous user appeal. On the other hand, mobile wallet providers and partners can benefit by providing new and personalized retail marketing and sales opportunities above and beyond the capabilities of debit or credit cards. Moreover, NFC payments can also integrate with other NFC applications, such as metro ticketing.
However, the report warns that NFC retail payments services must be deployed with a fully integrated and tested customer care channel, providing a single point of contact to take responsibility for resolving users’ problems quickly and efficiently.
Some other findings from Juniper’s report include:
- NFC mobile payments are set to exceed $180 billion worldwide in 2017 as NFC becomes standard.
- Mobile operators can offset declining ARPU as they commit to NFC-based payment projects.
As usual, you can get additional information about the report from Juniper’s website…