NFC is starting to make the mainstream headlines with many pilots and commercial roll-outs taking place. However, just as with the arrival of 3G, ATMs and chip and PIN bank cards there’s a whole lot of consumer education that needs to take place before people will understand and, more importantly, “trust” the technology.
We recently carried out a survey in the UK into the state of NFC knowledge among 2000 mobile users and the results confirmed that the technology is still relatively unknown. In fact only 32% of people had heard of NFC and nearly half had security concerns. Mobile NFC is as safe as any payment card and therefore we feel that the industry needs to help change these misconceptions.
As a starter we’ve created a list of 8 myth-busters around NFC that can be found on our website but here’s a sneak peak.
- Myth 1 – Consumers aren’t prepared to pay with their mobile – Actually the pilots have shown very high levels of customer satisfaction – over 90% in Nice!
- Myth 2 – Mobile payment via NFC isn’t really secure – It uses the same security schemes as contactless payment cards and is certified by Visa or MasterCard therefore offering their payment protection.
- Myth 3 – If my phone is lost or stolen it will be a nightmare to cancel/block my accounts – All applications could be blocked with one phone call.
- Myth 4 – NFC has been talked about for five years, it will never go mainstream – It takes time for technology to mature and the business schemes to be established but we’re now moving beyond pilots to commercial deployments.
- Myth 5 – There aren’t many phones available, how will it take off? Android, Windows Phone, Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung – handsets are now launching thick and fast.
- Myth 6 – If I had an NFC phones I wouldn’t be able to use it anywhere – Mass acceptance hasn’t been reached yet, we need more payment terminals but the deployments have started.
- Myth 7 – 10 years from now a mobile wallet will replace all cash and cards – It’s very hard to predict the future but NFC will mainly replace cash. Even then money as we know it will still be around for the forseeable future.
- Myth 8 – NFC – I’ve heard of it but it doesn’t sound so real to me – It has been piloted in many countries and the first commercial deployments are happening: 2012 looks like it will be NFC’s year.
Well, I hope that’s changed a few perceptions but to get the full answers visit our website. I know you normally do top 10 of things and I would love to say we wanted to be different but actually we couldn’t think of numbers 9 and 10 – what about you? Any urban legends for the myth busters?
