Two topics are today making a lot of buzz, but only buzz and no real business: Mobile Payment and Mobile Marketing.

When talking about mobile payment we see a huge ongoing buzz

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A new key for payment device is coming in San Fransisco. Customers can pay by simply with their Micro Tag…

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Retailers are turning to new technologies such as digital signage, contactless payments…

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NFC technology penetration will take time. Before a wide base of NFC handsets is spread on the market there is a very important opportunity to roll-out contactless applications and start boosting usage especially for new payment and marketing applications.

Refer to this very interesting article mentionning the success of contactless phone straps in Korea : Retro-fitting mobile phones with RFID

Also refer to the GSPOT project, an interactive loyalty card used as a marketing tool for a fashion retailer in Paris: GSPOT, a contactless loyalty program for GEDENIM

TIM is “Adavanced Marketing Director” at Inside Contactless and is giveing his vision of the NFC market.

Interview here

Here is an interesting article about the ongoing normalisation of the NFC ecosystem and confirming the 2 important news of the last month: NXP & Nokia are finally backing the SWP standard opening the way to the acceleration of the NFC Ecosystem.

The article also introduce a brief description of the NFC business models: renting space of the SIM card to bank, transit cies, retailers and service companies.

>>> More info here

DoCoMo & McDonald’s said in a joint statement on Monday they will set up a 300 million yen ($2.48 million) joint venture in July, McDonald’s Japan will hold a 70 percent stake in the joint venture, with DoCoMo owning the rest.

This initiative prooves the relevance of mobile contactless for retailers. Together with transport companies, retailer networks will play a proactive role in developping the contactless ecosystem.
>>> Read the press release

Tapping For Teriyaki Burgers In Japan

NTT DoCoMo and South Korea’s KTF have just joined UK-based Vodafone, Orange of France, Telefónica Móviles of Spain, South Korea’s SK Telecom and China Mobile in the GSMA NFC workgroup.
The aim of the workgroup is to promote a secure environment for the NFC ecosystem based on the SIM card and managed by “trusted service manager” …
>>> more info

>>> Download .pdf

Here is a nice description (in French…), of the contactless revolution in Japan, and particularly explaining the value added of such services for retailers (gain in service time, promotion, loyalty etc…)
>>> more info here

Here is a very interesting interview (in French) of Jerome Sion - Head of contactless at Gemalto, explaining the NFC ecosystem form a SIM vendor standpoint:

>>> more info here