By Heather McLean

Accenture has stated that NFC is a
bomb with a lit fuse, set to blow the
developing world into a new world of
converged payments.

Neil Hickey, Accenture’s mobile commerce lead within its mobility practice, told Mobile Money Exchange that NFC, although an emerging technology, is set to pull together all types of payment for end users, making life simpler for consumers and increasing the ability of banks, mobile operators and retailers to develop one to one relationships with customers.

“The fuse is lit on NFC; we’re already seeing NFC-enabled devices hitting the market in Europe and America, and now we’re only going to see acceleration in that takeup.

“But NFC is about more than just cash payments; one of the trends we were talking about at Mobile World Congress was currency convergence. NFC is a bit gimmicky now,” admitted Hickey. “But how that changed in Japan, which is leading the world in contactless payments, is by combining payment type with loyalty. NFC can bring cash, credit and store value cards, gift and coupon and loyalty programmes, ticketing, mobile marketing, and validation of the user as a location based service, together.”

He added: “Everyone is currently vying
for a share of the wallet, from the
mobile operator, to the banks, to the
retailers. NFC brings together
everything into one service to make it
easier for the consumer, but also to
allow banks, mobile operators and
retailers to cultivate one to one
relationships with customers.

Hickey continued: “If you think about all the junk and spam we receive, NFC has the ability to get rid of that by bringing everything together and allowing the redemption and management of these services.”

Juniper Research has predicted that by 2014, 570 million NFC-enabled phones will be shipped globally. Additionally, by 2014 NFC-enabled phones will have generated payments to the value of over $430 billion.

Hickey stated that Accenture is heavily involved in the mobile payments arena to aid the acceleration of this use of NFC technology, from running NFC trials for clients, helping clients evaluate their approach to NFC, to aiding business in finding the right NFC strategy for their business, including mobile payment application development, management and hosting.

“Now is a very exciting time because we’re seeing the convergence of multiple industries embracing mobile money and mobile payments, including retail merchants, mobile operators and banks,” concluded Hickey. Watch this space.