North America Will Have Half of all NFC Phones in Service in 2014

At least one in five smart phones globally will have near field communications functionality by 2014, Juniper Research estimates.

Worldwide, Juniper Research forecasts almost 300 million NFC capable smart phones by 2014. Juniper’s analysis shows that this growth will be driven in the short term by mobile network operators launching services in 20 early adopting countries before the end of 2012.

Juniper Research forecasts that NFC-based mobile payments and retail marketing capability via coupons and smart posters will become common amongst smart phone users in Western Europe, North America and other developed regions.

North America will account for half of all NFC smart phones in 2014, followed by Western Europe.

Japanese and Korean Telcos Announce NFC Roaming

Japan’s biggest mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo, has agreed with Korea’s second-largest telco, KT Corp., to develop cross-border payment, ticketing and other services using standard NFC.

In the announcement, DoCoMo said that these are NFC services that the two telcos will 'launch in their respective markets of Japan and South Korea from around the end of 2012.

Data from the U.S. market is scanty, as few consumers yet have had a chance to use NFC or other mobile payment applications and services.

Researchers at the Yankee Group note that 2010 was the first year tests were run. Click on image for a larger view.

Japanese and Korean Telcos Announce NFC Roaming–Rollouts Expected

Mobile Banking and Payments: Will Carriers Partner or Compete?

 There's an undeniable argument that mobile phone companies could, in the future, threaten banks by introducing their own mobile payment systems. There's probably an equally compelling argument for mobile carriers working with payment processors. Patrick Dixon offers his thoughts.

Lots of Subtleties to Mobile Banking

Mobile banking, some would argue, is not as obvious an opportunity for U.S. application or service providers because the banking infrastructure is well developed, in obvious contrast to the situation in many other parts of the world, where the mobile essentially "is" the banking channel.

The more-subtle observation is that the infrastructure an application provider puts into place to support mobile money transfers of various types also can be leveraged for loyalty campaigns, coupon distribution and other marketing campaigns.

Over time, we'll see how things develop, at least in the U.S. market, where it seems likely most of the value payment processing represents has yet to be "surfaced."

FaceCash Talks About Mobile Payment Business

Scale ultimately is key when any company seeks to create a viable payments business to rival, or at least displace or augment, some amount of debit card or credit card payments.