Card-security specialists are bullish regarding mobile Near Field Communication payments adoption in the U.S., a movement that could enable ISOs and agents to sell services to restaurants and to businesses that make deliveries or perform services at consumers’ homes.
That optimism about NFC shines through in a report by Boston-based Aite Group LLC. In April, the research firm surveyed 76 North and South American card-security specialists at the MasterCard Worldwide Global Risk Symposium.
Some 53% of respondents believed NFC will make inroads within the next three to four years, while 23% believed it will happen in the next year or two. Only 7% of respondents believed NFC never will become a factor in the U.S.
NFC as a fraud-prevention mechanism received high marks from respondents, with some 42% saying they believed the technology could protect sensitive information better than mag-stripe cards.
Some observers have discussed an eventual “marriage” between NFC and EMV. And panelists at the Smart Card Alliance’s conference in May suggested skipping directly to handsets and bypassing issuance of new plastic cards could help make the switch to EMV in the U.S. easier and quicker.
Still, at least one observer believes that teaming up EMV and NFC would prove troublesome.
“Personally, I think it’s a mistake to make a decision to [delay a] move to EMV in some form or capacity [because of] what’s going to happen in mobile payments,” Randy Vanderhoof, executive director for the Smart Card Alliance, told ISO&Agent Weekly in a May interview.
In the near-term, Aite suggests industry players should prepare for a payments environment in which the mag stripe’s relevance has disappeared.
“Whether the replacement is EMV, NFC or a combination of the two, industry stakeholders believe the mag stripe’s useful days are numbered,” the Aite report says.
