Impatient Early Adopters Get New Mobile-Pay Options for Old Phones

Anyone can turn a smartphone or tablet into a mobile card reader, but it’s not as easy to turn a phone into a contactless payment device if it wasn’t built that way. Some companies aim to change that.

On Track Innovations, or OTI, this week launched Copni Wave, a device that adds a Near Field Communication payment function to phones the same way Square Inc. adds a card-reading function — by plugging a small device into the phone’s headphone jack.

Inside Secure unveiled its own approach, PicoPulse, an NFC SIM chip that works with the VaultSecure technology the company introduced last month. 

There may be a market for such add-ons, since the early adopters most eager to try mobile payments have been vocal about their frustration in finding a system compatible with the phones they already own. 

Still, there are many ways to make mobile payments without NFC hardware. PayPal and Square offer cloud-based wallets, whereas Starbucks and SCVNGR’s LevelUp use a bar-code system. Both approaches can work with any smartphone.

“Right now, consumers are not that pressed to use NFC and there certainly is not much demand for NFC just to make payments,” says Adil Moussa, payments strategic marketing analyst at Omaha, Neb.-based Adil Consulting.

OTI, an Iselin, N.J.-based microprocessor, says the Copni Wave device and its correlating application represent the industry’s first plug-in mobile payment device that does not call for the consumer to open or install anything else in the phone.

Banks, retail merchants or any other businesses seeking to provide customers with mobile payment capabilities on their mobile devices will have the option to make the Copni Wave available, OTI says.

The NFC plug-in was developed to allow the consumer to still connect headphones “in parallel” to the device, allowing them to listen to music at the same time as using the NFC technology, OTI says.

As if using any NFC-enabled phone, a Copni Wave user simply taps the phone on a contactless reader when making a purchase.

OTI designed the Copni Wave to function with existing contactless payment applications from major credit card associations, mass transit ticketing and various loyalty programs.

Inside Secure, based in Aixen-Province, France, developed its PicoPulse chip SIM card for original equipment manufacturers to place inside any mobile phone or tablet to add NFC capabilities.

The chip reduces the effects of the metals and electrical noise found within mobile phones and other mobile devices, enabling PicoPulse to use an antenna that measures 10mm by 5mm to achieve “industry-standard transaction performance,” Inside Secure says.

The SIM card enables NFC transactions and functions even if the handset provider places it under or next to the phone battery, the company says. 

“These devices represent a good interim solution, not an ultimate solution,” Moussa says. “If these work for the next two or three years, that would be good, but most new phones will eventually have an NFC component.”

Neither OTI nor Inside Secure provided details about the cost of the NFC-enabling devices for manufacturers or retailers.

In March, OTI moved to protect its NFC patents when filing a lawsuit against T-Mobile USA, claiming infringement on its contactless technology design.