NFC provides users with electronic Payment account Services

The account service of electronic payment for users based on Near Field communication technology (NFC)

Go out without a wallet, as long as the pocket with a mobile phone, you can take the bus, take the subway, can be in convenience stores, supermarkets, shopping malls swipe card shopping, and even can be in the office area brush access. This kind of life scene, we have been imagining for many years.

Yesterday, China Telecom United domestic banks announced that, from December 23 onwards, with the support of NFC-enabled mobile phone users, can be free in China Telecom Business Hall to replace a mobile phone card to support NFC, open mobile phone wallet, the wallet in the bank card, bus cards all "into" mobile phones, In the mobile phone to achieve the payment function of all kinds of cards.

In fact, this is not the first step in a domestic operator's foray into mobile payment. Before this, the three major domestic operators have more or less involved in the field of mobile phone payment, and in some provinces and cities pilot launched a "mobile phone card", "mobile wallet" and other services. But unfortunately, over the years we imagined the "Everywhere Brush mobile phone" cool shot, has not become a life everywhere in the scene.

What is stopping the development of mobile phone payment? Strategy Analytics Mobile Internet strategy director Nitesh Patel in an interview with NetEase Technology, said, "Consumers are accustomed to using cash and bank cards to pay, because of the lack of change to mobile payment of real incentives, consumers are willing to continue to use the traditional payment tools." ”

"It is unrealistic to expect the market to take off quickly as consumers pay for their phones in the store," he said. Nitesh Patel believes it takes time to nurture the market. By the end of 2013, China's NFC-based mobile payment market was below $700,000 trillion, according to Strategy Analytics's conservative estimate, which is expected to grow to close to $220 million by 2017.

Operators have been involved for a long time

While China's NFC-based mobile payment market is not large, there is no disputing the fact that, with the rapid development of mobile Internet, most young people have become accustomed to "mobile phone time" and are more reliant on mobile phones when they go out.

"For consumers, the benefits of mobile-phone payments are convenience-go shopping without having to carry a bank card and wallet." Nitesh Patel believes that, in this trend, mobile operators also want to be able to share a slice of the mobile phone payment field.

Globally, operators have been involved in mobile payments for more than 10 years, and in China, operators have been involved in mobile payments for years, but until the last year the business began to get on track.

Operators do mobile phone payments, what are the advantages and short board? Advantages should be how to play, the short plate should be how to repair?

"In the area of mobile payment, operators can provide a secure hardware infrastructure and a huge customer base." "Nitesh Patel explains," in Usim card storage payment applications and user credentials enable operators to provide a recognized security environment for the payment industry. More importantly, operators have a huge customer base that makes them attractive partners for service providers, including commercial banks, and pushes mobile payments to market. ”

"Of course, operators also have a disadvantage-consumers don't think carriers are paying companies." "They would rather use the payment services offered by banks or widely recognised financial institutions than from telecoms operators," Nitesh Patel said. ”

To overcome these weaknesses, Nitesh Patel, operators should play the role of supporters by providing a platform for banks to participate.

As Nitesh Patel said, the three major domestic operators are building this platform. At the end of November 2012, China Unicom Joint investment Bank announced the launch of mobile wallet products; in June 2013, China Mobile and UnionPay announced the introduction of NFC-based mobile wallet business in more than 10 cities in China; the same year in October, Unicom's mobile wallet business expanded from CMB to Everbright, Guangdong, Xingye, Minsheng, Pudong , Citic and other banks, and plans to extend mobile wallet business to the whole country. November 2013, China Telecom United Merchants Bank, CCB and other more than 10 banks nationwide launch mobile wallet business.

Have been caught in the Battle of standards

Now that operators have been involved in mobile payments for many years, why did they not actually launch their mobile wallet business until the last year? One operator, who declined to be named, argued that years of "standard battles" were a key reason for the rapid growth of the mobile-phone payment business.

It is understood that in the mobile phone payment of the national standards, before the domestic mobile payment industry has been incompatible with the two standards of choice, one is the main push of China UnionPay based on the 13.56MHZ technology program, while the other is the main push of the Chinese mobile based on 2.4GHZ technology program.

It was not until 2012 that the two standards of mobile phone payments became a foregone conclusion. The final result of the game is: The People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Industry, the relevant departments of the National Standard Committee, the Organization of Chinese UnionPay and the three telecom operators, the development of mobile payment business agreed-near-field payment using 13.56MHz standard, and 2.45GHz program only for closed application environment, do not enter the financial

At this point, the international standard of 13.56Mhz, which is dominated by China UnionPay, has been identified as the current standard for China's financial mobile payments, while NFC mobile near-field payments based on this technical standard have been identified as the dominant mobile payment market.

In June, China Mobile signed a mobile payment business cooperation agreement with Chinese UnionPay, and began to fully support the 13.56MHZ mobile payment Technology program. Over the years, the battle for mobile payment standards has finally settled.

Restricted factors continue

After years of standard debate finally came to an end, another paradox emerged-how to achieve mobile phone payment?

It is understood that the mobile phone payment is roughly divided into three kinds of implementation: Full SIM card scheme, terminal solution, Terminal +sim Card scheme. A technology expert in the field of mobile payment believes that the three methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, and large-scale promotion is not easy.

For example, use a "full sim" scheme that changes only the SIM card, while the user only needs to replace a SIM card with an antenna in the business hall, the phone's rear cover must be a penetrating plastic shell; If you use a "full terminal" option that only replaces the phone, users will have to buy a customized handset with an integrated antenna.

At present, China UnionPay and the three major operators agree on the Basic agreement is to use the "Terminal +sim Card" program. The technology experts believe that although users need to replace the mobile phone, but also need to replace the SIM card, but compared to the first two options, the phone and SIM card requirements are relatively low.

However, even if the threshold is not high, consumers want to use mobile phone payment business, still need to go through some steps. According to the operator's staff, the user must first determine that they are using NFC-enabled mobile phones, and then can go to the business Hall to replace a SIM card (card number can be unchanged) and open mobile wallet service, next, users need to download mobile wallet client, and then complete the bank card binding, after completing these steps, Users will be able to support the mobile phone merchants to spend.

Once these problems are solved, users may still experience some trouble, such as not many mobile phones that support NFC capabilities. It is understood that the current support for NFC-enabled mobile phones, including Samsung, Sony, HTC, ZTE, Huawei, LG, backgammon, millet and other manufacturers of some models of mobile phones, and the market is selling the majority of mobile phones do not support NFC features, including the repeated failure of the NFC function of the Apple iphone.

"Because Apple is unlikely to meet the needs of operators, providing support for mobile based on SIM cards, operators face difficulties in providing NFC services to iphone users." "Nitesh Patel said. However, operators are trying to address the support of other branded handsets. According to Yangjie, general manager of China Telecom, since January 2014, China Telecom's newly listed 3G terminals will gradually achieve all models to support NFC, and 4G terminals will all have NFC capabilities.

How do you roll snowballs?

Strategy Analytics's latest report shows that the NFC mobile payment services that global operators are pushing are not limited to the support of handset makers, but also one obstacle is the slow popularity of mobile-phone payments among retailers.

"Where can I swipe my phone to pay?" This is a problem that many consumers are concerned about. In fact, this is also the problem for operators and the big banks--although the industry has been hype for many years, phone payments are still not widely used in retail outlets.

The result: While there are a number of users using smartphones to help them with their shopping, the number of people actually paying for their purchases through mobile phones is not that large. According to Strategy Analytics's report, 42% of smartphone users claimed to have shopped remotely or in physical stores via mobile phones, but because only a handful of retail outlets accepted mobile payments, the proportion of users who had successfully made mobile phone payments in physical stores could be far less than 10%.

"The provision of mobile payments in the physical stores, in addition to the existing cash and bank card payments on the basis of a new payment method, almost no other benefits for the retailer." Why do retailers try to invest in mobile payments in a market where payment cards are highly popular and cash payments are widely used? Said Nitesh Patel, the analyst.

"From a retailer's point of view, they really lack the incentive to pay for mobile phones because few consumers have mobile phones that support NFC payments." As a result, retailers are waiting for a large user to be born before the upgrade payment terminals are invested to support mobile payments. Nitesh Patel says the "chicken and egg" situation takes time to change, and mobile operators and commercial banks should shoulder the responsibility of driving mobile reception infrastructure into retail locations and providing incentives for consumers to use mobile payments.

Nitesh Patel that, in addition to paying, if you can use some marketing tools to promote sales, and drive user loyalty and satisfaction, then using mobile phone in retail outlets will be more attractive to retailers, the whole market will be more rolling.