Amazon is considering plans to strengthen its presence in the
break into the bricks-and-mortar space by launching mobile wallets
equipped with near-field communication (NFC), according to a report
by Bloomberg.
The online retailer is the latest company to express interest in
m-commerce and this move will place it in direct competition with
other major players such as Google, Apple and Microsoft.
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Two people with knowledge of the project told Bloomberg
Amazon will decide whether and when to publicly announce its NFC
mobile payment services within the next three to five months.
However, there is still a lot of work to do and challenges to
overcome before m-commerce truly takes off, claimed Osama Bedier,
Google’s VP at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, US.
Credit, debit and gift cards all need to be moved into the cloud
and the payment system to go digital if consumers are going to
convert to mobile payments, argued Bedier.
The inventory of existing retail stores needs to be accessible
and viewable online so users are aware of the right store to pick
up the goods. He also said a consumer’s identity needs to be
interoperable, allowing them to sign up for gift cards that can be
used across multiple sites without security fears.
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By GlobalDataProviding these barriers can be overcome, m-commerce has the
potential to bridge the gap between offline and online commerce
said Bedier.
Despite Bedier’s fears, Google has become a principle member of
the NFC forum, a not-for-profit association that promotes the use
of near-field communication technology.
Under membership conditions, Google can appoint a voting
representative to each of the technical, marketing and compliance
committees and working groups. It can also propose initiatives and
contribute to the development of forum deliverables, while
participating in NFC Forum testing and certification
programmes.
