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In Search of Near Field Communication at MWC 09

Near field communication (NFC) is not yet mass market, so it was largely in the background at Mobile World Congress. No big surprise, given that the mobile industry is not in the most buoyant of moods right now, with the focus on products and services based on technologies already in the market. But it was there and MWC had some important clues to what happens next.

Mobile payments

I am interested in mobile payments, not least because they are the main driving force behind NFC. On a more personal level, I worked on the M-PESA project before setting up Proxama four years ago. So it was great to see Safaricom and Vodafone scoop the Best Mobile Money Service award.

Also interesting was the GSMA and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s commitment to expand the availability of financial services to millions of people through mobile phones. The programme includes a US$5 million fund to kick start mobile money innovation across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This is important for the success of NFC because it will forge relationships between the banking community and the network operators. While the first services will be based on less complext technologies like SMS, the business models that fall out of this mobile money innovation will be invaluable.

Mobile marketing and NFC

With the growth in mobile marketing and advertising, it’s not surprising new applications were on show. Many of the SMS and barcode solutions for couponing and vouchers claim NFC support, so I was interested in their solutions. Disappointingly, there was nothing actually on display and no-one to explain this ‘support’.

Here at Proxama we spend a lot of time personalising NFC handsets. And we can manage applications and data on NFC handsets (our remote management solution for NFC applications was at Cartes 08). It’s complex stuff. So I fear the devil will be in the detail when it comes to marrying current loyalty and couponing solutions NFC.

Watch out for more on this from me.

NFC accelerators with all the trimmings

I did find one NFC ‘wow factor’ product, on the Inside Contactless stand. The <a href="http://www.taztag.com">Taz Tag</a> offers a lot of what is cool right now in mobile – touch screen, NFC, Zigbee and payment and ticketing applications, all in a card just 6mm thick. It’s at prototype stage right now, so I can’t say too much, but I do support NFC accelerators.

While I strongly believe one of the major benefits of NFC handsets is connectivity, there is a place for other NFC devices for certain applications. Such devices will help drive awareness and shape behaviour among consumers and service providers. 

I also bumped into Twinlinx. Its NFC/Bluetooth tag (on the market Q3 2009). seems to be a simple and cost-effective NFC enabler. Stick it on the back of any Bluetooth phone (issues with certain models are being ironed out) and you get all the functionality of NFC. The processing times are slower than a full NFC handset, but that is the only downside. As for concerns about the security of the Bluetooth interface, I strongly believe there are approaches, such as adding security at the application level, that mitigate any risk.

NFC next steps

Of course the SIM card providers had NFC, but nothing I hadn’t seen at Cartes. And the message is still the same - the secure element will be on the SIM. Details on the interface standard between the SIM and the handset are still being ironed out, but it’s pretty much a case of waiting for the handsets now. New on the chip scene was the Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM) from Moversa, a NXP and Sony Corporation joint venture. We provided the mobile wallet and payment application for their demo.

Which brings me full circle. There wasn’t a NFC handset story at MWC. But new mobile applications and, more significantly for NFC, the relationships that will be forged around these, are laying an interesting development path. It’s my bet NFC will win an award next year and this will be a rather different post.

Tagged with Loyalty Mobile marketing Mobile payments Near Field Communication

0 Comments. Posted by Neil 25 February 2009

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