opinion
did indeed , in the past few decades , lose significant market share to cashless , but that share loss is now tapering off and has stabilised . What is evident is that the different cashless payment methods are now simply stealing market share from each other .
A Word About NFC This now brings us to the next big question : will payment with NFC technology using mobile phones change all of this ? Will it take over all the other cashless means of payment and then completely run cash over ? This is the multi-million dollar question for operators that are looking to add NFC payment as an option to their new TVM deployments . Can the operator afford to not offer NFC payment ?
This is a debate that has been raging on in NFC forums for some years now . NFC has been successfully and unsuccessfully trialled at various retail outlets and also at some public transit stations . Transit for London , Europe ’ s biggest transit operator , tried it not long ago . Different trials in different industries yielded various degrees of success . A discussion on what is going on in the NFC ecosystem would take numerous pages , but suffice to say that the NFC technology and business ecosystems are not yet completely figured out . There are many competing value chains and business models , which in turn may need different elements of technology . We should be of the opinion that all technical problems will eventually be ironed out , and a dominant value chain would emerge , making NFC a seriously viable payment option .
The next thing to look at here is the other side of the coin . Will consumers or riders actually adopt NFC payment en masse , like they have with plastic ? No one really knows what the future will hold , but experts are now formulating a consensus on this - that NFC payment will become a much more prevalent form of payment in the developing world , and not as popular a form of payment in the developed world .
One can see why that is anticipated . To pay with a credit card , all you need to do is whip it out of your wallet , wave it in front of , or insert it into , the credit card device , and off you go . To pay with NFC , on the other hand , you have to take out your phone , key your PIN code or use your fingerprint to get in , launch the NFC application and enter its PIN , select which card the payment will go through , and finally wave the phone in front of the transceiver at the point of sale . Clearly , it is much easier and more expedient to pay with a credit card . Proponents of NFC payment , though , say that eventually all these steps will become second nature as we migrate towards the virtual wallet . But
who seriously thinks that e- , or m- , or virtual wallets is really the future ? What would I do if I lose my phone ? What will I do if the battery dies out ? There are many real life complications with NFC . The value proposition for the virtual wallet has yet to be resolved .
What Will Happen in the Future ? What will the payment share landscape be in the future ? Nobody knows , but if history is an indication , then cash will maintain a certain ( but steady ) share , and cashless methods of payment will continue to exchange market share among each other . The same predicament operators face today will exist in the future - having to support multiple payment methods . NFC will have its adopters , but in the UK and America for instance , it will not rule .
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