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Mobile payments are no longer interesting or exciting to, but mostly frustrating. Hopefully, Google throwing a couple billion at ubiquitizing NFC terminals will

Mobile payments are no longer interesting or exciting to, but mostly frustrating. Hopefully, Google throwing a couple billion at ubiquitizing NFC terminals will stir things up. Japan has been doing it for years while US giants hold each other in a stalemate. At least Square is happily trotting forward while Visa and Mastercard miss another Paypal.

hurricane 15y ago
If you look at Japan, one of the big reasons they were able to get so far ahead with mobile payments being ubiquitous was NTT docomo's subsidizing of the NFC units for merchants. Whether it will be Google, Verifone, or someone else is yet to be seen, but NFC is coming one way or another.
- baconface 15y ago
  Agreed. It's smelling like Google: http://phandroid.com/2011/03/15/google-reportedly-buying-up-nfc-payment-terminals-for-deployment-around-san-francisco-and-nyc/ http://phandroid.com/2011/03/15/google-reportedly-buying-up-...
18pfsmt 15y ago
From what I remember, the credit card and merchant acquiring companies were more interested in transactions that were of low value, and in which time was more of an issue. So, they went after quick service restaurants, convenience stores, and movie theaters. I remember specific roll outs from MCDs, JackIntheBox, Regal, 7-11, and as they rolled out, nobody noticed except those of us familiar with the hardware/ logos. I would ask the clerks if people used these payment methods, and half of them didn't realize that it was even there or an option. Because smaller merchants are more price sensitive, they were simply assumed not to be interested, so they weren't targeted by their merchant acquirers. Instead, the sales folks went to the large national chains that operate or franchise stores across the US. It's also interesting to note that much of our mass transit trains in larger cities are equipped with compatible terminals (NYC, DC, SanFran, Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas). There's only 3 significant systems integrators in the space (e.g. Cubic Systems), so hopefully Google is in talks with them as well.

hurricane 15y ago

If you look at Japan, one of the big reasons they were able to get so far ahead with mobile payments being ubiquitous was NTT docomo's subsidizing of the NFC units for merchants. Whether it will be Google, Verifone, or someone else is yet to be seen, but NFC is coming one way or another.

baconface 15y ago
Agreed. It's smelling like Google: http://phandroid.com/2011/03/15/google-reportedly-buying-up-nfc-payment-terminals-for-deployment-around-san-francisco-and-nyc/ http://phandroid.com/2011/03/15/google-reportedly-buying-up-...

18pfsmt 15y ago

From what I remember, the credit card and merchant acquiring companies were more interested in transactions that were of low value, and in which time was more of an issue. So, they went after quick service restaurants, convenience stores, and movie theaters. I remember specific roll outs from MCDs, JackIntheBox, Regal, 7-11, and as they rolled out, nobody noticed except those of us familiar with the hardware/ logos. I would ask the clerks if people used these payment methods, and half of them didn't realize that it was even there or an option. Because smaller merchants are more price sensitive, they were simply assumed not to be interested, so they weren't targeted by their merchant acquirers. Instead, the sales folks went to the large national chains that operate or franchise stores across the US. It's also interesting to note that much of our mass transit trains in larger cities are equipped with compatible terminals (NYC, DC, SanFran, Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas). There's only 3 significant systems integrators in the space (e.g. Cubic Systems), so hopefully Google is in talks with them as well.