So it's been almost a year with NFC...

[AstroManLuca]

As for NFC in Asia, is it really NFC? I see the subway cards used EVERYWHERE in Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, but seriously a lot of people still pay in cash in Taiwan and Korea, even if 90% of the population has a subway card. Furthermore, it's a subway card, it's not a credit card. Credit cards are not as popular in Asia. I can swipe for everything in the US from something as small as a 99 cent bag of chips at 7-11 to a $2000 TV here, but I see it rarely used overseas still. For example, eating with friends we'll credit card roulette here or split credit cards... but I've always seen cash payments done with my cousins when they take me out.

So while you see a lot of RFID payment terminals in Asia, I don't know if that means they'll jump straight to credit card NFC payments. Otherwise all the worldwide phones like the SGS2 would've had NFC and there would've been some NFC payment service other than Google developed and already popular in Asia.

NFC could leapfrog credit cards just as cell phones leapfrogged landlines there. I did an internship in China for several months in 2006-07 and landlines weren't really common except in businesses and institutions. Most people just had cell phones because the landline infrastructure wasn't nearly as developed. By the time China started advancing their technology, they found it easier to just build cell towers instead.

Similarly, I didn't see many cards. Maybe a regional thing; I was in a city that was pretty far inland and not one of the modern cosmopolitan cities like Shanghai, but people seemed to use cash for a lot of things and cards were uncommon.

Combine widespread cell phone use with low credit card use and you could certainly see NFC payment get big.

As for the subways, one problem in the US is our currency is outdated. In a lot of countries, their lowest value bill is somewhere in the $2-$5 range, with $1, $2, and even higher value coins being common. In the US if you want to take the bus or train, you have to carry a stack of bills that wear out quickly or a sack of quarters to get anywhere. If $1 and $2 coins were commonplace, cash payment would be much easier. But of course no one wants to upgrade the current infrastructure; hell, just finding a machine that takes $1 coins is hard enough.

 

[AstroManLuca]

i load my starbucks card and pay $25 SB gets charged once. i buy coffee with a cc once a day and starbucks will get charged every single transaction. since there is a minimum fee they will save money if people use their cards since a lot of them also use cash to refill them.

and they can market to these customers with free drinks and food

starbucks buys the NFC terminals and people use phones instead of cards, unless they somehow save on CC fees with NFC there is no return on investment

Furthermore, think of how much extra money Starbucks gets from people leaving a small amount of value on their cards. I'm thinking of the MS Points situation, where there are possibly millions of dollars of unused (and unusable) points scattered across people's accounts.

 

[alent1234]

yeah, forgot about that

most retailers love gift cards because of the interest income they get from it

 

[alent1234]

NFC could leapfrog credit cards just as cell phones leapfrogged landlines there. I did an internship in China for several months in 2006-07 and landlines weren't really common except in businesses and institutions. Most people just had cell phones because the landline infrastructure wasn't nearly as developed. By the time China started advancing their technology, they found it easier to just build cell towers instead.

Similarly, I didn't see many cards. Maybe a regional thing; I was in a city that was pretty far inland and not one of the modern cosmopolitan cities like Shanghai, but people seemed to use cash for a lot of things and cards were uncommon.

Combine widespread cell phone use with low credit card use and you could certainly see NFC payment get big.

As for the subways, one problem in the US is our currency is outdated. In a lot of countries, their lowest value bill is somewhere in the $2-$5 range, with $1, $2, and even higher value coins being common. In the US if you want to take the bus or train, you have to carry a stack of bills that wear out quickly or a sack of quarters to get anywhere. If $1 and $2 coins were commonplace, cash payment would be much easier. But of course no one wants to upgrade the current infrastructure; hell, just finding a machine that takes $1 coins is hard enough.

do they still take cash on the bus anymore in NYC? in the subways it's all metrocard

 

[AstroManLuca]

do they still take cash on the bus anymore in NYC? in the subways it's all metrocard

No clue. Public transportation in Minnesota is pretty crappy and a lot of people seem to use cash.

 

[CVSiN]

And I have yet to use it on my Nexus S. Overhyped?

Oh and Wallet only works with the Sprint Nexus S. So what the fuck is the point of this technology again? I can't use it on my phone with a stock ROM. Even some ROM that I have that bundled it doesn't allow me to use it...

The test ICS build on Nexus S works wonderfully but the Wallet fails.

So there's all this talk about NFC, but I've only seen it at ONE location so far where they will take Google Wallet.

because we live in the USA where everything takes DECADES longer to implement than the rest of the world?
Nokia had pay by phone wallet tech 6 years ago..
Overseas been using phones as payment options for just as long..

just here in the USA are we behind.

 

[alent1234]

behind who?

i'd rather use my credit card

 

[dguy6789]

And you'd also rather carry a watch, a beeper, an mp3 player, and a camera? The idea is to reduce the number of things we have to carry. This is but one step. I am eagerly waiting for the day when a smartphone is the only thing I need to carry period. It will lock/unlock the doors at my home, turn on my car, it will have my driver's license on it, will be what I use to buy things in stores, etc...

 

[Red Storm]

And you'd also rather carry a watch, a beeper, an mp3 player, and a camera? The idea is to reduce the number of things we have to carry. This is but one step. I am eagerly waiting for the day when a smartphone is the only thing I need to carry period. It will lock/unlock the doors at my home, turn on my car, it will have my driver's license on it, will be what I use to buy things in stores, etc...

Creating a single point of failure so that if your phone's battery dies, you become homeless, carless, with no ID or money.

I know I'll still be carrying around my actual license, keys, and credit card.

 

[zerogear]

Overhyped, but I think rather than device-based NFC aren't most people (corporations) going with SIM Card NFC?

 

[alent1234]

And you'd also rather carry a watch, a beeper, an mp3 player, and a camera? The idea is to reduce the number of things we have to carry. This is but one step. I am eagerly waiting for the day when a smartphone is the only thing I need to carry period. It will lock/unlock the doors at my home, turn on my car, it will have my driver's license on it, will be what I use to buy things in stores, etc...

What if the battery dies?

What if it breaks?

 

[JS80]

Stores love their own prepaid cards due to less cc fees paid. What's the point of investing for NFC?

How do people fund the prepaid cards? lulz.

 

[JS80]

Have some patience. I'm working on a startup that in theory should make NFC proliferate at little/no cost to merchants...

 

[zCypher]

If it's not NFC it'll be something similar, it will happen one way or another. It seems rather inevitable. I wouldn't mind being able to use that feature, as I only carry my wallet if I need something in there. So most days when I'm just going to work and back, I'll only have my phone and a small amount of cash for food/drinks. If I can eliminate the cash altogether, I'd definitely go for it.

Battery is not really a concern for me as my phone easily lasts the full day even with intense heavy usage.

What if something happens to the phone? Well the same thing could be said about any other method of payment. What if you get mugged, what if you somehow misplace your cash/cards/wtv? It's not any more likely for me to let something happen to my phone vs anything else in my pockets, if anything I'm extra careful with the phone.

Obviously if it's crucial for nothing to go wrong (such as you are traveling), it would make sense to carry backup (cash/cards/wtv) and be nonsensical to rely on one sole thing. So it's kind of a moot point to say "what if" about the phone.

 

[akugami]

Apple isn't even close to the largest provider of smart phones so why would they lead the industry in pushing change. More like when retail locations adapt NFC Apple will come out with an ad campaign telling everyone how they invented NFC and how theirs is better because it has an Apple logo on it.

Apple has incredible pull with the media and with the public. As good as Samsung is doing, Apple including NFC in their next iPhone is probably better at furthering NFC payments than Samsung, HTC, and Motorola including it in all of their phones. Love Apple or hate them, they have an incredible brand name right now.

because we live in the USA where everything takes DECADES longer to implement than the rest of the world?
Nokia had pay by phone wallet tech 6 years ago..
Overseas been using phones as payment options for just as long..

just here in the USA are we behind.

I disagree with this. The USA is so large that building an infrastructure is a nightmare. It's not like many European countries because our smallest state (Rhode Island) is bigger than some European countries. I can tell you right now that it's far far easier to build something like an NFC payments system in a country the size of Rhode Island and could have been done years ago than to build the infrastructure needed to support all of the USA.

 

[alent1234]

How do people fund the prepaid cards? lulz.

the CC fees are a percentage plus a minimum fee of $.30 cents or so. say $.35 cents for a brewed coffee at starbucks. that's $3.50 for 10 trips or $7 for 20 trips.

$1.75 tall coffee plus tax is just under $2 so that's 20 cups for a $25 card refill. one card refill on a CC will cost starbucks $1.50 or so compared to $7 for paying for each cup with a CC

 

[akugami]

the CC fees are a percentage plus a minimum fee of $.30 cents or so. say $.35 cents for a brewed coffee at starbucks. that's $3.50 for 10 trips or $7 for 20 trips.

$1.75 tall coffee plus tax is just under $2 so that's 20 cups for a $25 card refill. one card refill on a CC will cost starbucks $1.50 or so compared to $7 for paying for each cup with a CC

Depends on the type of business. High volume and high number of tickets usually has the best rates. Volume is total sales in electronic transactions. Rate is the per transaction fee and the percentage they take out of your volume. Low volume, and low ticket numbers usually gets very high rates. Generally a supermarket can expect the best rates, but they still pay out the wazoo due to the number of transactions as well as the high volume.

Generally speaking, credit card surcharges are a violation of the merchant account agreements for Vista and MC but "discouraged" by Amex. Merchant accounts are the credit card accounts for retailers. The retailers must apply for these accounts. Cash discounts however are entirely legal. The highest minimum charge allowable is also $10. So if someone says you have to spend $15 or some number higher than $10, kindly inform him/her the minimum is $10 and that you'll file a complaint with Vista/MC if they don't agree.

Anyhows, 30 cents per transaction means you either have very low average ticket size (average dollar value of all transactions) and very low number of transactions per month or someone is bending you over without bothering with the lube.

 

[soccerballtux]

The fees are not what's stopping newer ways of paying such as NFC. It's the fact that a standard CC terminal is usually the cheapest one and it usually has no NFC module. The retailer can pay for a higher end terminal...but good luck selling a higher end terminal to support NFC which is a new technology and barely supported.

Kinda reminds me of the smart chips inside the credit cards. They've been around for years and I think I used it less than 10 times total.

I'm also not too keen on having payments tied to my phone and having the possibility of getting my phone swiped while I'm talking on it and then having to worry about my credit/bank accounts being charged.

basically google would need to buy a company that makes credit card readers and have them design a unit that can do NFC + credit cards. Then, give them to every shop owner for free, and charge < MasterCard/Amex for the merchant fee. This is the only way. But the payoff would be worth it.
Sheesh someone should pay me money for this. Google is an idiot.

As for security, a pin or longer swiped security pass-shape like the unlock feature on Android would work.

 

[zerogear]

I see this being integrated pretty fast in Japan if it will be integrated into preexisting systems like SuiKa and FeliCa.

 

[wirednuts]

i couldnt fathom how much money visa and mastercard make on transaction fees. it has to be an ungodly amount of profit...

but anyway... i had an NFC creditcard from mastercard, issued by citibank. total pos. never worked once. i had it set up right too, i know i did. it just never worked, and everytime i tried it the gas station lady or whoever would flat out tell me "it works less then half the time. its a complete joke"

thats not to say NFC is a bad technology, i was just saying that its going to be awhile before it goes mainstream. personally i would like to see NFC in all handguns.. where you have to wear a cloth ring that contains the chip inside... or if you wanted (like if you were a cop) you could have the chip implanted into your hand. that way, nobody can fire that gun except you. it would make things so much safer without taking away the ability to defend ourselves.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

There's some deal today around SF about how if you use Google Wallet you can get a free creme brulee at one of my favorite food carts.

Well guess what? I fire up Play Store on my unlocked Nexus S and I can't download it. Fucking vaporware. I'm not about to jump through hoops to use this.

NFC technology is still crap and overrated. If anything Siri, while a closed source iPhone 4S only thing is probably FAR MORE USED than NFC. Which is sad because if done right NFC could've taken off.

Good fucking job Google.

 

[wirednuts]

blame mastercard. their NFC system is abysmal. and if you launch a new feature only to have it fail the first 3 times you try it, its not going to be successful. i wasnt the only one either, the cashiers would always roll their eyes and say "yeah, it almost never works. we are getting rid of it soon"

 

[wirednuts]

NFC technology is still crap and overrated.

yeah i dont know who is making the actual hardware, but they are doing a terrible job. NFC is used by the military and governments, so whoever is making the consumer grade stuff just sucks.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Oh this is after searchign XDA on the Nexus S forums to find an app.

If you replaced NFC with the 3 letters GPS, and said that I need to be on Sprint to use it, I think people would be pissed. Verizon customers have to sideload GPS software to use GPS? What?

Seriously, keep the phone features and carriers separate, especially when they don't need to be involved in the first place.

 

[QueBert]

My phone has NFC, I bought a NFC enabled Bluetooth headset. But my phone doesn't support the NFC headset tag (wtf?) I bought a pack of NFC tags so I could program my own shits, but it turns out they're not compatible with the Note or Galaxy Nexus due to some antenna bullshit.

I understand for the typical person who uses NFC they don't encounter problems like this, but my 1st go-round with NFC I gotta give it a big FAIL mark. As far as Google Wallet, it might work great, but AT&T doesn't and probably never will allow it. I see them rolling out their own payment system sometime this year. And I'll probably get the honor to have the option to pay them an extra $5 a month on my already $100+ billl to use this amazing NFC technology.

I CAN'T WAIT!