Smart Card Alliance announces Mobile and NFC Council

Designed to raise awareness and accelerate adoption

The Council, announced today by the Smart Card Alliance, is designed to raise awareness and accelerate adoption of the various uses for NFC technology (view press release). The Council to date has the backing of around 60 organisations and 120 individuals and will aim to bring together stakeholders in the different industry verticals that can benefit from mobile and NFC applications such as payments, loyalty, marketing, promotion/coupons/offers, peer-to-peer, identity, access control and transit applications.

The Council’s three core activities will be to provide educational resources for organisations offering NFC apps and services to foster deployment in the marketplace; provide a hub through which stakeholders in different industries can collaborate, network, share and discuss ideas regarding mobile and NFC apps; and collaborate with other industry organisations to promote standards for NFC application implementation.

At this point in the commercial evolution of NFC technology, it is essential that organizations from all sectors of the global ecosystem work together to bring its benefits to more people in more ways,” said Debbie Arnold, director of NFC Forum. “The Mobile and NFC Council will play a key role in nurturing these opportunities…”

“Many think of payments when they hear NFC, but the technology opens the door to many industries for innovative applications, such as ticketing, digital content exchange, secure identification, social networking, and communication between electronic devices,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “The Mobile and NFC Council will provide a bridge between NFC technologies and the industries who want to adopt NFC-enabled mobile devices to discuss and promote common standards and best practices.”  

There are an estimated 100 million NFC-enabled smartphone handsets expected to hit the market this year.

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