If you’ve used any form of NFC payments, be it from your phone or just a bank card, you’ll likely agree that after the initial setup process, making use if the feature is beyond convenient. But it looks like it may come with even more features in the future than simply just paying for things with a tap. The NFC Forum has announced that it is working on making such transactions a “multi-purpose tap”.
From the post, it looks like the goal of the upgrade is to make it so that you pay for your transactions with a tap, while also applying discounts and receiving loyalty points when possible. Beyond these conditional applications, paying via NFC methods will also get the receipt of the transaction sent directly to your phone.
Going in the opposite direction, the new additions being proposed to be added to NFC payments include using it as a form of identity verification. The example provided here is to prevent minors from purchasing alcohol, which could naturally be applied to a variety of similar use cases. And since data can go both ways, this can also be applied to e-tickets, with the device or card being used as verification rather than a paper ticket or token.
Which all sound like very good features to be added on to NFC tech. All that being said though, these are still considered an emerging concept, still in the ideation stage. It remains to be seen when, or indeed if, all of these use cases will end up being a reality for the general public. The good news is that the standards body consists of over 600 companies, with big names including the likes of Apple, Google, Qualcomm, Sony and Huawei, among others. Which means that when it works, it will work across the board, regardless of platform.
(Source: NFC Forum [1], [2])
