In my mind the way to think about contactless payment technologies such as NFC is not so much the payment transaction but more as enablers that allow much more rich content to be embedded into a transaction, a good example being Google wallet, the elegance of the solution is not so much that you can pay but the ability to dynamically combine offers, coupons, loyalty as well as payment in one single transaction something that’s not currently possible with your bank issued plastic. The amount or data that can be harvested makes this technology priceless for merchants/banks/advertisers etc.

In Africa and other non-terminalised markets there is a lot of interest as to whether NFC enabled phones can be used as merchant devices in place of bulky terminals or whether the solution is to have square like devices and potentially issue accompanying plastic to mobile money wallets such as Mpesa. Wonder what you all think the future of payments in .ke will look like.

Regards,

John M.

Fellow Skunk