"1 2 The Evolution Will Be Colorized"...THIS Will Be Your Next Wallet

THIS Will Be Your Next Wallet

By John R. Quain

Published November 30, 2010

Are you ready to give up cash, and maybe even give up your credit cards? I'm not, but there are plenty of companies -- from Google to AT&T -- that think we will.

The idea has been around for more than 20 years but has never come to fruition, because the basic technological tools weren't readily available. Now they are. They're called smartphones.

Earlier this month, Google waved around a prototype Android phone with a special chip that lets customers pay simply by waving the phone near a cash register. Known as near-field communication (NFC), the trick is to use short-range radio signals to send your credit card or bank account information directly to a register so that you don't have to swipe or sign for things. Or get your hands dirty with all that filthy lucre.

In one sense, such technology is overkill. Many of us can already wave a credit card at the gas pump or Quickie Mart and have a sale immediately rung up on the register. Credit card companies call it contactless payment. But contactless payments use a one-way system where your credit card info is simply passed from the card to the scanner. You don't receive, say, any information about what you purchased or about what your current balance is on the card itself.

Smartphones could give shoppers that important information, plus a digital receipt. And stores could incorporate electronic coupons on the spot ("You've just saved $1 on kitty litter, sir!"). Others could include their loyalty cards in a digital form that resides on your phone. It would certainly be more convenient; I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten that darn discount card for the hardware store.

Indeed, there are already third-party apps such as CardStar that let you store loyalty card info on your iPhone. Some retailers, like Tesco and Subway, also offer virtual cards as apps, but they're inconvenient: You have to open the app on your phone and have the checkout person scan a barcode off it. An NFC digital card would work automatically, without any scanning.

As more and more people use smartphones -- already nearly 20 percent by some estimates -- companies anticipate they will also want to do away with credit cards and money itself. PayPal has already proven that giving people more control over their money online is something people want. Now it's focusing on mobile money transactions, too.

"You won't need your wallet when you walk out the door," Amanda Pires, senior director of global communications for PayPal, told FoxNews.com. "Your mobile wallet will be in the cloud."

Your banking balance, debit card info, and credit card account information will be stored online and accessed wirelessly and instantly whenever you buy something in a store. In fact, that information is already stored "in the cloud" on computer servers by your bank, it's just not automatically accessible with cash registers of the future.

PayPal envisions a cashless, cardless payment future, something Pires says the company is already experimenting with using an automatic payment system from Bling Nation. At the Facebook and PayPal campuses in California, participants can pay for their lunches using a Bling Nation-equipped phone; the money comes straight out of their PayPal accounts.

While such experiments are small, big players are planning to launch similar services nationwide. AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile recently announced a joint venture called Isis to build a mobile payment network based on an NFC system. The first markets should go live within a year and a half. And Nokia and Google have indicated their new 2011 phones will be compatible with it.

In the meantime, mobile cashless services are already here for small businesses

. Intuit, the company behind Quicken, has offered its GoPayment service for nearly two years.

paniuroczy	I think they're already doing this in Japan. America's so behind.
	- E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator