Summary [Dave Birch] The Chicago Fed published an interesting letter asking whether mobile is the new smart card by which they mean, in an American context, will mobile payments flare and then die away. They agree with me (!) that mobile holds a significant advantage over contactless cards in the area of paperless two-way communication. Cards just do not allow for the sending, receiving, and presenting of information, as mobile devices do. These are clearly factors that point to mobile beginning to encroach on cards territory. They are already are in some places. France, for example, where Orange has announced that it will launch the first mobile contactless services, based on NFC technology, in Bordeaux in early 2008. And in the U.S., where Wells Fargo and Visa are to conduct public mobile payments trial with up to 500 customers in the fourth quarter of the year. So is mobile the new smart card: ie, a new payment technology that starts in France and then spreads worldwide except for the U.S., finally sneaking in to the U.S. under the guise of contactless? Well, I guess, the answer must be yes!

Technorati Tags: contactless, mobile

Note that Orange have said that they are preparing similar launches in its other European markets. So someone is bullish (eg, Peter Helderman). But retailers still have some questions despite being enthusiastic. Marina O’Rourke, the director of retail technology at the Subway restaurant chain, says that as the mobile phone becomes more ubiquitous, there are many opportunities for retailers to use the technology to market products to customers. She means things like using a phone’s GPS to locate a Subway shop, send an order via text message to the store and then going to pick it up, paying (of course) with the phone. She also says that Subway is in the early stages of piloting some different options for mobile. This kind of vision will, I think, become commonplace more quickly than many anticipate. Many other observers (ie, not just people like me who are obsessed with mobile NFC) think that ultimately may drive acceptance of contactless technology with consumers and retailers is its integration with mobile phones.

Javelin have just come out with a similar perspective, saying that adding contactless to consumer mobile devices will replace payments cards and will spur 30 million additional users over the next 5 years. The numbers are starting get pretty serious.

These opinions are my own (I think) and presented solely in my capacity as an interested member of the general public [posted with ecto]

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