Visa has establish partnership with a number of smartphone brands using the Android platform and BlackBerry to the list of certified products for NFC (Near Field Communication) payments. As reported by Computer World, smartphones included in the 1st batch list are Samsung Galaxy SII, LG Optimus NET NFC, BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9360, Curve 9380 and BlackBerry. This certification means that the smartphone have fulfilled the requirements to use Visa’s payWave technology.
PayWave machine are currently available for 185 thousand pieces scattered all over Europe. From any other country in the world, it seems that Europe is an early adopter of this NFC technology. The value added of using payWave technology is the compatibility with Google Wallet service. Thus if you use your phone as a medium of payment, you can choose to use Google Wallet to do fast and convenient transaction.
In my personal opinion, NFC adoption is quite slow. Until now Apple device, iPhone, isn’t having NFC built-in features yet. However there are chips in the iPhone casing patch that allows them to be the media of financial transactions as implemented by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
In Indonesia, 2012 will likely be the moment for developers to demonstrate a prototype application utilizing NFC. With plenty of smartphones that are certified in Indonesia, hopefully payWave usage as a practical method of payment can be immediately realized. A long cashier queue at the hypermarket can be minimized if payment is done using this method.
You are no longer need to carry a penny in your purse or pocket to pay at the minimarket. Simply scan your smartphone and the payment is successful. Surely you shouldn’t forget to keep your credit limit/credit on your smartphone. Do not let your credit less than the value of goods/services that you want to buy or pay.
Previously, DailySocial also set up a special category for NFC area in the Nokia DevStart Competition which crowned NFC as the winner. All applications in this competition are made for MeeGo platform.
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