Mobile near field communication, contactless cards, intelligent promotional couponing – the technology marches on

The way that people pay has changed so much over recent years due to various advancements in technology.

Those changes are still continuing apace today – and look set to carry on into the foreseeable future. If anything, the pace of that change seems set to increase even further. The trend towards mobile payment solutions will take an upward turn as the technology improves.

“The desire for mobile payment using cellular handsets is a trend which will affect traditional payment systems, as the population adapts to and adopts this technology,” says Robert Bird of Astrosystems. “Cashless payment systems will offer more avenues for customer payment.”

“The ability to be able to make payment by the use of a mobile phone is now with us and will continue to grow as it becomes more available over the next couple of years,” said David Stenning of Embed Playsafe.

Near field communication is also an issue now. “A key technological trend that we are seeing is increasing movement towards mobile/SMS remote payment and mobile NFC,” said Kiran Karanki of Semnox. “This has started catching up. Increasingly customers are asking us to explore this as a payment mode.”

Still in the realm of the cashless, cards and tickets continue to rise in popularity, with contactless cards starting to feature more and more. “It is clear that the cost of contactless cards is coming down and this will have an impact in this area, as will the ability to pay for more and more online,” said Stenning. “I firmly believe though that card-based transactions will be around and will continue to grow for many years to come.”

“Another trend is towards contactless cards, taking the form of e-wallets,” said Karanki. “Entire amusement complexes are being run on the concept of e-wallet. Also, with the advent of tablets, this is presenting new opportunities to develop ‘on the go’ payment solutions. While the technologies have been around for some time, for the first time we are seeing customers starting to see value and encouraging us to explore further.

“Payment solutions are becoming ‘intelligent,’ providing greater convenience and control. We see increased adoption of contactless technologies and payment solutions are becoming smarter going by the ever-increasing demand from customers for flexible features, checks and balances, the need for up-selling, increased customer touch-points and information visibility.”

This feature can be read in full in the July 2012 issue of InterGame magazine