Implementing NFC payment technology in smartphones could completely change consumers’ shopping experience
Ranging from international corporations to smaller businesses and even high street retailers, all manner of sectors are working to adopt the latest technologies in order to stay in line with emerging trends and keep up with the competition.
While larger companies focus on cloud computing and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) look to implement the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practice, one step that a number of retailers are hoping to make is that of moving towards the widespread adoption of near field communication (NFC) capabilities for payment transactions.
Allowing consumers to pay for their goods wirelessly, the transition could see a marked improvement in the speed and ease with which customers’ goods are processed at checkouts around the country – and one expert believes that working the technology into smartphones could be a significant development.
"NFC has been a technology that’s been waiting to be in smartphones for a while," said Neil Garner, chief executive officer and founder of Proxama.com.
"The key thing it can do is turn your mobile phone into a wallet – so you can actually put cards into it and make payments at the till. That’s a bit of a game changer from our perspective."
Given the emphasis on helping the high street compete with the ever-growing ecommerce sector, implementing NFC capabilities into people’s phones could be one way through which traditional retailers boost their own technological credentials as they improve the shopping experience for consumers.
However, as with any new system of payment, there are likely to be reservations, and so any success will be dependent upon the ability of the service to provide the sufficient protection to customers’ financial details.
As such, retailers will need sufficient backup software and disaster recovery procedures in place as they look to defend their servers as effectively as possible.