For AIRTAG, NFC Is Worth The Wait

The future of NFC is bright: it might just take a while to reach that future. That’s the message we took away Jérémie Leroyer, CEO of AIRTAG, who blended optimisms over NFC’s potential with realisms about the challenges the technology will face. PYMNTS.com spoke with Leroyer to discuss his company’s agreement with PayPass, the future of NFC and more.

For AIRTAG, NFC Is Worth The Wait

If NFC-based mobile wallets are going to succeed, developers are going to need help creating compatible applications.

One such company trying to ease that process is AIRTAG, a self-described “mobile shopping ecosystems” innovator with some exciting ideas about the future of NFC.

PYMNTS.com spoke with Jérémie Leroyer, AIRTAG’s CEO, to discuss his company’s work with MasterCard Mobile PayPass, why NFC will be more readily adopted in the future and why the AIRTAG kit is so unique.

AIRTAG made major headlines earlier this month, giving MasterCard Mobile PayPass a boost with its developer-friendly AIRTAG Kit. 

“The purpose of the AIRTAG kit … is to provide a tool for developers to more easily develop mobile PayPass applications … In this kit, you have three different things: first the hardware, the NFC phone, the reader, and the secure SIM card,” Leroyer said. “It is the first time that an NFC kit has provided all of the necessary hardware to make development for an NFC application.”

While AIRTAG’s Mobile PayPass kit may rely on NFC technology, Leroyer took a very measured approach when speaking about the technology’s future. For example, he estimated that we won’t see NFC comprise 10-20 percent of transactions for a few more years, and said he believes there will always be consumers and businesses who support more traditional payments means.

“We think that in the future we’ll see different payments schemes on the market, and we think that of course online payments schemes like PayPal will definitely be very relevant, and we also have products and solutions based on those payments schemes,” Leroyer noted.

However, the CEO said that because of the security involved with NFC technology, contactless’ future is bright: even if it will take longer than most technologies to adopt.

“When there is more security with payments, fraud is going to be lower,” Leroyer said. “As fraud is going to be lower due to the security, of course fees are going to be lower. And this is very interesting for merchants, and this is what merchants are looking for … a solution that is cheaper for them.”

To hear more Leyorer on AIRTAG’s deal with MasterCard, the future of NFC and more, listen to the full podcast below.

   


Jérémie Leroyer

Co-Founder and CEO, AIRTAG

Jérémie is a seasoned entrepreneur and cofounder of AIRTAG where he currently contributes as CEO and Director of Business Development and Marketing. Prior to AIRTAG Jérémie was cofounder of Haiku / Europe Index where he led as the Director of Marketing, for Multimedia & Mobile. Haiku was acquired by Japanese Index Corporation in December 2004 for € 10m, proving his ability to grow innovative ideas into real business. He has 10 years of experience in creating and delivering technology based marketing solutions along with 3 years of experience in strategy consulting for mobile marketing technologies at Arthur D. Little in Paris for clients including; Bouygues, SFR and France Telecom. Jérémie holds an MBA from The European Business School ESCP-EAP and IEP Paris.