Visa is developing a system with Bank of America that will be tested in the next few weeks. The new system will allow contactless payments to be made with a digital wallet system. If successful, we could see these type of payments becoming main stream of the next few years.
The trials are being run next month in the New York area. Although these kinds of payments are not the common thing to see in the US or Europe, they have been working successfully in Japan for a number of years. We are basically left playing catchup with Japan like with all things such as HDTV.
The system works by inserting small chips in to smartphones (or a smartphone case). When the phone makes close contact with the point-of-sale device the payment is authorised and money taken out of your digital wallet.
This type of system seems to be where Apple [AAPL] is heading with the next generation iPhone 5. The company recently revealed that they have hired a near field communications expert which indicates the same technology will be integrated in to the iPhone 5.
Via: Geeky Gadgets
People around the world today are using smart cards for debit and credit payments. Contactless payment applications are gaining momentum as new contactless devices are being introduced like Secure Contactless Tokens, NFC Stickers etc.As far as on security concern Dynamically generated codes, high encryption standards and biometrics can be employed in the security mechanisms for the contactless devices.
And very nice and informative news on contactless payment