Mobile payments set to bloom
 

Apple Pay appears to have spurred the company’s competitors to get in on the mobile payment act and a report today said that global shipments of moble phones using near field communications (NFC) totalled 400 million units last year.

That, according to research company Topology, is about 20 percent of total shipments worldwide last year.

Topology predicts that this year that figure will rise to 30 percent this year but the story isn’t over yet. Analysts think the percentage will amount to 60 percent of 1.2 billion units in 2018.

However, there is one challenge vendors have to face, and that’s security.

Ariel Chen, Topology semiconductor analyst, said that trading money over mobile phones needs “very high” security standards and hardware here is better than software.

Chen claims that criminals can use their own iPhones to make payments with card information they’ve stolen.

The answer to this is semiconductor manufacturers working closely with banks and better verification for customers.

http://www.techeye.net/business/mobi...s-set-to-bloom