Potential hazards for the mobile industry in marketing NFC include confusion over handset capability, risk of fragmentation and the name of the technology itself, according to handset vendor Samsung. But the company has an antidote: send an easy-to-understand marketing message to consumers. 

The industry needs to avoid confusion by clearly communicating during the early stages of NFC why only certain handsets can make payments, according to a presentation by Alan Baldwin, leader of the vendor’s technology innovation group, speaking at a Mobile Money Live webinar on NFC (see video). Samsung has already laid down a marker in the NFC market as the manufacturer behind the Google Nexus S (pictured), the most high profile handset to date based on the technology.

Baldwin highlighted another potential concern about NFC which is commonly cited: the complexity of its ecosystem. Every player would like to own the user and competing technologies could cause a problem for handset vendors, he said. Finally, he noted that the NFC name “does not really tell the user what is happening." Instead, the brand needs to be about payments or how users can access information from NFC tags, he advised. “The industry needs to think of something better perhaps [than NFC].”

Baldwin argued instead that NFC must have an easy-to-understand approach. This includes a simple explanation for how it works but also an effort to minimise technology fragmentation (he favours mobile operator joint ventures). Finally, he said the industry needs innovation so that NFC is offering more than just a substitute for contactless card payments.