Cell Phones and a Cashless Society

The Next Step toward the 'Mark of the Beast' is the Cell Phone in Your Hand

U.S. smartphone users keen to make payments with their phones

January 21, 2010

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - An in-depth survey of 246 US smartphone users conducted by wireless industry research specialists Data Innovation has found that nearly two-thirds are interested in adding mobile wallet functionality to their phones. Only 10% stated they were not interested in a mobile wallet, and 25% said they were not sure.

The Mobile Money Study found that 70% of respondents had used at least one mobile banking and/or payment service in the past three months.

• The most popular mobile banking service was checking account balances (82%), followed by checking posted transactions (62%).


• Other popular services included checking posted transactions to a credit card (over 50%), conducting mobile commerce transactions (40%), mobile account alerts (46%), transferring money between accounts in the same bank (almost 40%), and mobile bill pay (29%).

Survey respondents also expressed interest in mobile P2P services (25%), mobile remittances (20%), and accessing stock market data (18%).



And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. --Revelation 13:16-18

Report: Federal Government Needs to Set Policy for a Cashless Society

November 17, 2009

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) - In a small but growing number of nations the mobile phone has evolved from a simple personal communications device to become both a platform for commerce and an indispensable part of a “lifestyle infrastructure” that enhances personal productivity, manages financial transactions, and makes life far more convenient and efficient.

Indeed, around the world, consumers can use mobile phones as electronic wallets to pay for public transit, to check in at airline gates, and to make purchases from merchants, kiosks, and vendors.

But not in the United States, which lags behind world leaders in leveraging the mobile phone as a platform to effect commercial transactions. The result is lagging productivity and reduced convenience for America and Americans.

In the report Explaining International Mobile Payments Leadership ITIF identifies the leading nations in mobile payments, explains why the United States lags so far behind, and offers a set of policy recommendations for how the federal government can take steps to speed the arrival and adoption of more sophisticated forms of mobile commerce transactions, better leveraging these increasingly powerful mobile communications devices.

Download the report (PDF)

Financial-Elite Think Tank Calls on the Government to Kickstart the Deployment of Mobile Contactless Services in the U.S.

ITIF recommends ways in which government can help to get NFC and mobile contactless services off the ground

November 30, 2009

NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com - The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington DC based think tank, has published a white paper outlining ways in which government intervention could help to kickstart mobile contactless services and ensure that adoption in the US does not lag behind other parts of the world.

The 60-page report, Explaining International IT Application Leadership: Contactless Mobile Payments, details the current state of play in other parts of the world, particularly in Japan and Korea, and calls on the US government to put measures in place that will enable American businesses to gain the benefits an established mobile contactless infrastructure would bring.

"Countries can't just snap their fingers and put a mobile payments infrastructure in place or expect that because the technology is now ready the private sector will simply deploy it," the white paper explains. "The reason is that mobile payments are not like other industries where a company need only acquire requisite inputs, manufacture a product or design a service, and sell it on the market."

"Mobile payments," it adds, "entail a complex, system-interdependent ecosystem with many players— including mobile network operators (MNOs), handset manufacturers, financial institutions including major banks and credit card issuers, merchants, public transit authorities, government agencies, third party application providers, and consumers — whose success is dependent on joint action by all the players together at the same time. Everyone must act collaboratively in the ecosystem simultaneously, but this is not something at which markets tend to be very good."

ITIF recommends that the US government takes the following actions in order to help mobile contactless systems get up and running:

The creation of an inter-government mobile payments working group and private-sector advisory council that would collaborate to introduce, by mid-2010, a strategy for spurring the deployment of an open, interoperable mobile wallet.

Government should assume a leadership role in promoting and adopting mobile payments.

Senior government leaders should highlight the benefits of contactless mobile payments. Senior leaders at the FCC, departments of commerce and transportation, and other agencies should provide vision and leadership and speak openly about the transformative potential of contactless mobile payments in the United States.

The US government should make it a requirement that mass transit agencies receiving federal funding must deploy NFC-enabled contactless fare payment systems that are interoperable with those of other transit agencies throughout the country.

Funding should be provided for pilot programs deploying an NFC infrastructure in publicly or semi-publicly operated or managed environments.

Deploy a contactless payments infrastructure, including NFC-enabled electronic wallet phones and NFC-enabled POS readers throughout government agencies. Recommended actions include a move by the General Services Administration to adopting contactless POS terminals in all cafeterias, parking garages and other cash facilities it directly operates in federal agencies and facilities, including Department of Defense facilities. Government identification programs such as the Department of Defense's Common Access Card and the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) should also allow electronic wallet applications to be housed on the card and both state and local governments using POS terminals to process payments for services such as marriage licenses, parking permits and drivers licenses should deploy NFC-enabled POS terminals, enabling citizens to make contactless payments.

Articulate clear consumer protections for mobile payments to assure consumers that using mobile payments will give them the same level of recourse in case of disputes with merchants that they currently enjoy.

Address legitimate security and privacy concerns, but recognise that mobile wallets are likely to be more secure than physical wallets.

Resist the urge to regulate RFID technologies, including near field communication.

Encourage competition and do not favour entrenched interests.

Actively work with international NFC standards setting bodies. Federal bodies involved in trade policy, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the United States Trade Representative should support the development of interoperable international standards for mobile payments, leading to benefits for both domestic device manufacturers looking to export to global markets and consumers seeking convenient payment experiences.