Payments players in South Africa have “little appetite” for NFC at this point, writes Nashua Mobile’s Tim Walter. Walter blames the nation’s recent experience with EMV rollout as a limiting factor for the standard’s short-term proliferation.
“It took a good 10 years from when banks first started talking about EMV until it become common in South African shops – and even now the rollout isn’t 100% complete,” Walter notes. To convince the nation’s payment institutions to invest in yet another standard, Walter says companies are waiting to see “some clearly defined benefits in security, convenience and cost-reduction.”
In the meantime, banks may be the first institutions to “experiment and investigate” NFC’s potential, perhaps over the course of 2012, Walter writes. But globally, Walter says the payment landscape is “still a long way off from the critical mass that would really justify massive investment” in NFC.
Walter’s comments first appeared in Gadget earlier this week. Read the full story here.
