A new study by Juniper Research forecasts that NFC will facilitate transactions valued at $74 billion by 2015, as near-field communication is increasingly used for the payment of goods in-store and as transport tickets; this more than triple the estimated value of this market in 2011.

The increasing use of mobile devices as an alternative to credit cards and paper tickets is one of the fastest growing segments of the mobile commerce market.

The Mobile Commerce Markets report shows that the rapid adoption of mobile devices for commerce-related applications is by no means limited to NFC. All segments—money transfers, banking, payments, and coupons—are forecast to exhibit significant growth rates.

Report author David Snow says: "Our report demonstrates the spectacular growth we see across all segments of the mobile commerce market. Four of these segments (money transfer, physical goods, NFC, and coupons) will more than treble in transaction value over the next three years, while digital goods, banking and tickets will still on average, double over the same period."

The Juniper report, however, stressed that mobile commerce providers need to keep security issues in mind. Even if there is a perceived, if not actual, security risk in the mind of users, not only the specific mobile commerce application, but also the whole mobile commerce market may be set back until user trust is recovered.

Further findings include:

•    SMS is the key to widespread mobile banking service adoption.

•    Without interoperability mobile money transfer services will struggle to gain a critical mass of users.

•    While mobile coupons still represent the smallest mobile commerce segment, it is demonstrating the highest growth rate.

The Mobile Commerce whitepaper is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the study.

http://www.juniperresearch.com/viewpressrelease.php?pr=291

 

 

[This article was posted on April 4, 2012, on the website of ABA Banking Journal, www.ababj.com.]       

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