Orange phone, Barclaycard users can pay for purchases with topped-up money
Quick Tap, a contactless payment service that uses the Near-Field Communications (NFC) technology in mobile phones has been launched in the UK.
Users can now pay for purchases — for transactions of up to £15 — using their mobile phones in shops which have signed up to the service such as McDonalds, Pret-a-Manger and EAT. Users will have to top-up their phone contracts to up to £100 and use it to pay instead of debit or credit cards.
Users need need Orange and Barclaycard accounts to avail the service. It works on enabled Samsung Tocco Lite phones.
A significant change in mobile payments is expected in the next few years as a new research by communications research company Juniper Research suggests that about 20% smartphones will have NFC technology by 2014.
The report says that the NFC technology will be adopted rapidly over the next three years with almost 300 million NFC capable smartphones by 2014.
The report also says that the mobile network operators launching services in 20 early adopting countries before the end of 2012 will drive the growth in NFC.
In April, Samsung had announced that it will introduce a mobile phone that will allow contactless payments for the London Olympics next year. Samsung will be working with Visa on the NFC project.
The phone, dubbed as "Samsung Olympic and Paralympic Games" mobile handset, will use NFC technology that allows payment by waving a mobile handset in front of special readers. The phone will feature a Visa enabled sim card and around 60,000 locations in London will be equipped with readers to accept NFC payments before the Olympics begin in 2012.
