The nascent Near Field Communications (NFC) market may finally be on the verge of living up to its potential following two major developments last week. Firstly, Nokia’s Anssi Vanjoki was widely reported to have told the MobeyForum conference that the world’s largest handset vendor will begin to embed NFC functionality in its devices from next year. All about Symbian.com noted that NFC will likely first appear in high-end devices and then trickle down to its lower-end devices over time. NFC is scheduled to be one of the new features in the Symbian ^4 platform. All about Symbian.com reports that it was originally targeted for inclusion in Symbian ^3, but was pushed back to the later release to avoid overall delays. Meanwhile, as reported in Mobile Business Briefing Friday, chip giant Broadcom has bid US$47.5 million for UK-based NFC developer Innovision Research & Technology. Broadcom already counts Nokia as a customer of its chips.

NFC technology has been around for years but has not yet experienced significant commercial success. NFC chips can communicate with contactless readers so users can make financial transactions over short distances, for instance using a debit or credit card to buy small items in a convenience store or a ticket on public transport. O2 is a big backer of the technology, whilst Nokia’s rival Samsung is also a supporter.