NFC Credit Card Processing
Credit
Card Processing technology is seemingly changing by the minute and both
merchants and consumers alike wonder how they will accept credit cards
in the future. Mobile devices are the hottest talk in the industry and
Square has been making a lot of news lately but before this, NFC, or
Near Field Communication devices were expected to be the main method of credit card processing in the future.But as technology changes, so do the certainty of certain technologies cornering the market. While everyone agrees that mobile credit card processing will allow more businesses to enter the market, nobody is sure how to best accept credit cards. The fact remains that no matter how many people are set up to accept credit cards on the go with their smartphones, the vast majority of both merchants and consumers still feel most secure with real plastic credit cards.
Near Field Technology would actually be used to allow devices to communicate with each other at close range. So merchant and customer would not have to physically handle cards if they had built in NFC chips in their cellphones or had one of the many NFC accessories on the market. Even though the transfer of data can only be done at close range, NFC security is not yet that safe and can be breached by hackers. It is certainly not the norm but as with many newer technologies the bad element always seems to find a way in.
The credit card processing for those will to accept credit cards this way is very cool. Basically a customer with credit card information stored on an NFC type chip in their phone can simply wave their phone over a receiving device located near a merchants terminal. In completely mobile transactions, the devices would simply need to connect or wave in some manner.
A lot of the major players in technology have invested heavily in seeing that NFC becomes a mainstay of future eCommerce with many of the major Cell phone manufactures already making NFC equipped phones. The potential to streamline credit card processing for point of sale transactions is one thing, but using the technology for ticketing, boarding passes, coupons, rental cars and hotel check ins also have others interested in pushing the technology.
Companies like Square plan to make sure that both mobile and stationary payments are equally serviced to accept credit cards because they are not sure that NFC will be the best solution for credit card processing and do not want all their eggs in one basket. Traditional transactions have been ingrained into people for the last 40 years and won’t easily change over the next generation.
