July 23, 2012 Written by Dawinderpal Sahota
The NFC retail payments market will be worth more
than $180bn globally by 2017, marking a seven-fold increase to the value
of the market in 2012, according to Juniper Research. The firm said
that that the North America, Western Europe and Far East regions will
contribute 90 per cent of this market value, as smartphones with NFC
payment technology become standard in those markets.
The findings
were revealed in a report by the research firm, which also hailed 2011
as a watershed year for NFC payments. Over the course of the year, major
technology infrastructure standards were finalised, NFC payment pilots
from both mobile operators and financial institutions were launched
commercially and NFC-enabled smartphone models were announced by almost
all handset manufacturers, while Google also launched its mobile wallet
service in the US.
However, the market acceleration of 2011
revealed that some parts of the ecosystem are unprepared for the future,
according to Juniper. In particular, retailers are less convinced of
the benefits of NFC payments over existing card technologies and are
unwilling to invest in contactless infrastructure so soon after the
transition to Chip and PIN.
The firm said that education and
“win-win” propositions from other ecosystem players are necessary to
make retailers as committed to this opportunity as themselves.
“This
is a critical time for the NFC retail payments market. Despite the
significant progress being made today, the full potential of the market
can only be fulfilled if all ecosystem players are equally committed and
mobile wallet consortia remain in place,” commented Dr Windsor Holden,
research director at Juniper and the report’s co-author.
