Nearly everyone agrees 2011 ended on a high note.
Black Friday and a last-minute surge fueled by deals and deal-hunters popped spending 4.1 percent in November and 4.7 percent in December, compared with the same periods in 2010.
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index jumped from 55.2 in November to a respectable 64.5 in December.
And, the New York-based business membership and research association’s Global Economic Outlook report now says the global economy should grow 3.2 percent in 2012 and then accelerate somewhat to 3.5 percent from 2013 to 2016.
I realize – those aren’t exactly knock-your-socks-off numbers.
But they’re decent and should certainly be encouraging if you’re a Tier 3 or 4 merchant—or for that matter, an ISO or acquiring service provider that processes card payments for those merchants. Many are now deciding whether to follow the Tier 1 and 2 retailers which started issuing requests for proposals for their next generation point-of-sale (POS) solution requiring Near Field Communication (NFC) acceptance capability as a must, and targeting full scale commercial deployments starting this year. This is in addition to the 15% of top 150 merchants that are already enabled with contactless and NFC mobile payment acceptance today.
But if the shopping numbers and forecasts don’t push you into the NFC believer camp, then consider this:
About 35 million NFC-equipped phones shipped during 2011, according to the year-end update out of
London-based IMS Research. And that number, IMS said, will more than double in 2012 to a critical mass of 80 million phones shipped with NFC capabilities.
The Isis joint venture of telcos Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile has promised it will launch NFC pilots in Salt Lake City and Austin during the first half of 2012, with a national rollout to follow shortly thereafter.
Google, meanwhile, will reportedly expand its Google Wallet contactless mobile commerce services to the U.K. in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics, where Visa is sponsoring the games, per usual. But this time Visa will be launching a special handset at the games with Samsung geared around its NFC-ready PayWave point-of-sale terminals.
And not to be outdone by Visa, MasterCard has joined forces with mFoundry, a mobile banking specialist that counts more than 500 banks, credit unions and other financial institutions as customers to help banks offer NFC-based mobile wallets or banking apps this year.
Their plan is to allow the more than 7 million consumers who use mFoundry apps and services, to soon make payments, redeem coupons, collect discounts or chalk up loyalty points with a single tap of their phone at thousands of point-of-sale terminals using the very same mobile app they use regularly today to check their bank statements, pay bills and transfer funds.
Finally, do not forget Visa’s initiative to get U.S. retailers to start installing point- of-sale (POS) checkout terminals that use Eurocard-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) contact and contactless chip technology.
Under the Visa endeavor announced last August, the new POS terminals will accept contact and contactless chip-cards as well as NFC contactless payments from mobile phones. And to motivate merchants to make the switch, beginning October 1, 2012, Visa will waive the annual fraud-protection security certifications that costs American business more than $2 billion a year, if at least 75 percent of Visa transactions come from EMV chip-enabled terminals.
As a result of all this, large carriers, large issuers, large merchants and large acquirers worldwide are well down the road to extending their presence and services through mobile phones and NFC globally.
But, it’s not NFC mobile payments alone that set this train in motion.
What’s pushed NFC from promise to reality for the large institutions is the increased interest by consumers in cost saving deals, rewards and offers that makes real-time, in-store personal marketing, merchandising and loyalty programs possible – helping merchants to increase their sales while delivering richer shopping and cost savings value to consumers.
And that’s where the real money is for brick-and-mortar merchants of all sizes, and where all of us will realize the majority of NFC’s value and convenience.
The next big wave of infrastructure enablement will be among the Tier 3 and 4 merchants, and the ecosystem players that support them.
To make hay, if you’re a service provider for Tier 3 or 4 merchant, you need to look to your strengths – your assets – and decide now how you want to play this mobile NFC revolution, because everything you need is ready and waiting to strengthen your current customer relationships by introducing coveted new services.
So, do not be left behind. A tsunami of epic proportions is coming through growing use of powerful smartphone devices over high speed data networks, and increasingly richer, highly-effective personalized and location based consumer mobile marketing channel. And I sincerely believe that everything the Internet brought us in late 1990s will actually pale by comparison.
However, if you do not play, there is a danger of losing what market strength you still have.
But if you play your cards right, the opportunities to grow your business starting in 2012 are nothing short of amazing.  |
