“Taiwan has taken what can only be described as a major step toward implementing NFC as a broad platform for mobile commerce by bringing together a number of industry members in the Proximity Mobile Transaction Service Alliance, including international players such as MasterCard, Visa and Philips. … In the near future, consumers are expected to be able to use public transport, visit cinemas or concerts, or do their weekly shopping using an NFC-enabled mobile phone or PDA - something that many would view as the ultimate convenience for the connected consumer.”

We asked an elite group of contactless technologists from around the globe to give us their insight into the trends and changes we can expect in 2005. Leading chip, card, and solution providers are represented in this glimpse into the future of contactless and RFID technology. 

A panel of ID industry experts provided predictions for 2005. One of these glimpses into the future will appear here each day during December.

by Pierre A. Roberge, Vice-President, Research & Development, Dexit Inc.

RFID has been deployed, used and accepted by consumers globally for retail transactions for more than eight years with applications such as Exxon Mobil Speedpass (loyalty & payment service in the United States); Octopus (a contactless transit card in Hong Kong); and Dexit (with its prepaid contactless payment service) embraced by a wide variety of merchants and consumers. 

1. FC Cologne has implemented a multi-function contactless ticketing solution based on Philips MIFARE DESFire chip technology. The 1. FC Köln stadium, one of 12 venues for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, uses both Philips’ MIFARE DESFire smart cards and MIFARE DESFire SAM (ticketing interface), offering a combination of speed of access, data security and future proofing.

A panel of ID industry experts provided predictions for 2005. One of these glimpses into the future will appear here each day during December.

by VC Kumar, strategy manager for contactless commerce, Texas Instruments RFid Systems

In the coming year, we expect exciting advancements in short-range “proximity” wireless communications between consumer devices, with the combination of RFID and near-field communication (NFC) technologies. While much of the attention on RFID in 2004 has focused on retailer mandates and government passport requirements, its use in contactless commerce applications has continued to grow, with the expansion of credit card and bank issuer pilots, and amusement and sports venues adding RFID to make consumer purchases faster and easier. 

&A panel of ID industry experts provided predictions for 2005. One of these glimpses into the future will appear here each day during December. If 2003 and 2004 were the “pilot” years for contactless payments in the United States, 2005 is turning out to be the commercial roll out year, with several major deployments scheduled. Speed and convenience are the major driving forces for these deployments, but not the only factors. Increased transaction volume and transaction amounts along with “top of wallet” effects have been recognized in the pilot programs as clear benefits for retailers that predominantly deal with cash transactions and have long lines of customers at their check out lanes during peak hours.

A panel of ID industry experts provided predictions for 2005. One of these glimpses into the future will appear here each day during December.

by Bruno Charrat, Chief Technical Officer, Inside Contactless

Today there is a growing trend amongst the major smart card players and market leaders, in the perception of RF 13.56MHz contactless technology as a promising replacement to other smart card technologies such as contact cards and older RF technologies such as 125 KHz systems. This is already widely the case in the access control and mass transit markets, with E- payment and ID document markets following the same trend.