Attempts to turn mobile phones into digital wallets gather pace. Square, a start-up... wants to undercut the credit-card processing fees charged to small businesses and to make it easy for them to accept digital payments.. Google was expected to unveil plans to test its own mobile-payment service.
Both geeks and moneymen know that persuading more Americans to use their phones as mobile wallets will not be easy. A survey by Javelin Strategy & Research published last year found that only 19% of Americans were interested in using some form of contactless payment. Those who think mobile wallets’ time has come point out that more and more tech firms are embracing Near-Field Communication (NFC), a wireless connectivity technology that allows phones with embedded NFC chips to make payments when “waved” near an in-store terminal.
Read more at The Economist
