Mobiles to bridge gap
Mobile payments and near field communication (NFC) technology will play a key role in the payments landscape in 2012, with Australia leading the way when it comes to mobile and contactless payments, according to a recent panel discussion held in Sydney.
Speaking at a Blackberry hosted event entitled What’s the deal with NFC in Australia, Ben Pfisterer, Visa’s director of innovation and emerging products for Australia and New Zealand, said developments in NFC and mobile technology meant Australia was well poised to deploy contactless payments successfully.
“With such a heavy focus on NFC technology and the acceptance of pay wave card issuance, the groundwork has been set for NFC to not only be deployed, but to actually prosper,” he said.
“The unique nature of the Australian market is worth highlighting. We have a perfect mix of consumer appetite for technology and smartphones as well as the phenomenal utilisation of payWave.”
Payments lead the way
While NFC technology embodies a whole range of concepts and ideas, payments is one of the key developments to emerge in this field, Pfisterer said.
“Payments are one of the key things to come out of NFC technology. It has the scale, the size and the importance to push some of the prerequisites to start seeing some of these technologies emerge.
“We are now seeing mobile payments coming into a new era. We see 2012 being an extremely exciting year across the board for a lot of organisations. There are different applications for NFC and we are focused on payments which we think will be the game changer to start things off, but the capabilities from there are phenomenal,” he said.
While the potential for NFC to flourish in Australia is high, a strong ‘ecosystem’ that will support the infrastructure is crucial. Pfisterer admits that although the Australian market has developed quite rapidly with what he considers to be a ‘phenomenal footprint’ on payWave card issuance and acceptance terminals, a lot of work still needs to be done.
“In order to have a flourishing NFC ecosystem, the key thing you need is contactless infrastructure. We accept that there is still a lot of hard work to be done, but at the moment we are seeing one of the most unique situations where massive industries are starting to collaborate on a scale that we haven’t seen before – telecommunication companies, financial services organisations coming together – this is a phenomenal thing to happen,” he said.
Security issues
One of the key issues surrounding NFC technology and contactless payments is the issue of security, Pfisterer says. Pointing to a pilot Visa carried out with National Australia Bank and Telstra, he explained how the advent of smartphone applications has presented many security challenges.
“When we did a pilot with NAB and Telstra, security was the number one thing everyone was curious about,” he said.
‘However, the emergence of smartphones over the last few years has been phenomenal and consumers’ ability and openness to download apps from any store and not really question who built them has completely changed the landscape.”
Pfisterer says that while more recent pilots have found security to be less of a concern for consumers, he stressed that it remains a key priority for Visa when deploying any solution.
Certification process
One of the key objectives for all those involved in rolling out NFC technologies is to create a unified certification process, Pfisterer said.
This is particularly important given the fact that many large industry players are increasingly starting to work together.
“What we need to do as a combined industry is look at the certification process. We are very well defined in what we do today –we certify cards with banks and external vendors, but we are entering a new realm where the certification processes are overlapping,” he said.
Pfisterer added that Visa is taking a very proactive stance in this regard and said the firm was actively looking at the certification process and running tests in order to ensure it is efficient, but stressed there was still a lot to do.
Quick fix?
When questioned on whether the development and increased focus on NFC technology and deployment was an answer to problems in the current payment system, Pfisterer denied this was the case.
“We don’t see it as fixing a problem,” he said. “We see it as providing enhanced solutions. If we had any inclination that this wouldn’t be taken up by consumers, or that it had any significant value in it, we wouldn’t be investing the time and the effort. “It is important to remember it is not just about consumers, it is also important for handset vendors, telecommunications companies and merchants. It is not about solving a problem it is about creating an opportunity,” he concluded.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags:
- Ben Pfisterer, Visa
- Author:
- Angela Faherty, afaherty@financialpublications.com.au
- Article Posted:
- February 15, 2012
Review this content
Fields marked with an asterisk (
) are mandatory.