APACS Predicts Rise of Contactless Payments

Contactless payments through pre-paid credit cards and mobile phones are almost certain to become a feature of everyday life, APACS has suggested.

In particular, buying goods through mobile phones using a technology called Near Field Communication (NFC) will see strong growth in the future, according to the payments association. This will take its place alongside existing contact-free payment systems such as London's Oysters, pre-paid cards which are used by the capital's residents to pay for transport costs.

APACS' position is backed up by recent figures released by Juniper Research, which predicted that around 612 million NFC-enabled mobile phone users would be making almost £300 billion worth of payments through the devices each year by 2011. NFC works when two devices containing the technology are brought within four centimetres of each other; the payment itself is activated by a simple wave or touch.

Jemma Smith, spokesperson for APACS, said: "Building on contactless technology…is happening at industry level. The one situation where NFC is coming into play is the combined use of cards and mobiles - or putting a chip into a mobile or SIM - that would enable you to either make payments or to do things which might expect to do at a cash machine other than taking out cash."

She added: "There is no doubt that [mobile phones] are going to impact on a payments level at some point in the future. It's not a question of if, it's more of a question of when."