Near Field Communication, commonly known as NFC is a technology that is shaping a new path for the mobile industry. This technology has been around for a while in different forms. For example, everyone remembers that one hotel where the room keys were simple looking cards which when tapped to the receiver attached to the lock, provide access to the room. Commuter cards, print advertisements and smart cards are common examples of the use of NFC.
Recently, the technology has been integrated to mobile phones and has given rise to numerous new features. The most important function of them all is mobile payments. The idea is to replace real wallets which are subject to theft and fraud. All major mobile phone brands have introduced phones with NFC technology including Samsung, Nokia and Apple, across all types of operating systems. Soon enough, payment by mobile phones will be both popular and preferred, because tapping your phone on a reading device is way easier than counting currency notes, or even the use of plastic money since its still more time consuming than using NFC integrated mobile phones.
The technology is very easy to use and saves time. There are two ways how NFC works. It could be in either a two-way communication in which two devices both read and write information for each other or a one-way communication setup in which a powered device, like a phone, both reads and writes to an NFC chip. The main question that comes to everyone's mind is, aren't these features all easily achievable by Bluetooth? Soon when the majority of the population will be using the mobile payment system and wallets will be replaced, battery of the cellular device will be one of the most important resources and functions like Bluetooth are both battery and time consuming. This makes the quick an easy NFC method a popular choice for the process.
China being the world's largest market for mobile phones also has the largest scope for the proximity mobile payments market. The Chinese have doubled in terms of people using their cell phone's NFC technology to pay for goods and services. It is predicted that by 2020 around 50% of all smart phone users will be using Mobile payment methods only. With a growth rate that surpasses even the likes of USA who are estimated to have just 37.5 million proximity mobile phone payments users compared to China's whooping 195.3 million users in 2016 alone.
