


PayPal president, David Marcus, predicted in a blog post Monday that NFC for payments will "fail to gain mass adoption" and the debate over NFC's suitability for payments "will slowly die in 2013.""

"Is tapping a phone on a terminal any easier than swiping a credit card?" he asked on the PayPal blog. "I don't think so--it's not solving a real consumer problem and its [sic] not providing additional value to encourage me (or anyone else for that matter) to change my behavior."

PayPal made the controversial prediction amid a fight with banks, telcos and technology companies to become consumers' default mobile digital wallet. The top Australian banks are moving forward with plans to support NFC payments, while Visa recently announced a NFC payment app for Vodafone smartphones.

IBRS analyst, Guy Cranswick, told Computerworld Australia he "completely agree[s]" with Marcus.

"Too often the technology is seen as the catalyst but it's not and his argument is one I have made on NFC," Cranswick said. "It's the reason why I analysed the market because there was so much hype on the NFC gate but it will fade."


"NFC is quickly becoming a standard for all smartphones and the technology can be used for many applications, not just payments," Gedda said. "NFC will gain mass adoption the same way Bluetooth and Wi-Fi gained mass adoption by being integrated into devices people carry with them all the time."



In his blog, PayPal's Marcus predicted that payments, loyalty points and coupons will merge into one digital wallet next year. "These three separate businesses will converge to make it easy for consumers and merchants to automatically leverage appropriate coupons and offers."


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