近场通讯：终将成为移动支付的未来
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随着移动商务的兴起，谷歌（Google）、Square、据说还有苹果（Apple）等公司开始将赌注压在移动支付上。通过采用这种支付技术，用户手中的智能手机俨然成了信用交易设备。据报道，杰克•多尔西的初创公司Square不仅发售了50万张读卡器，而且每天可处理300万美元的移动付款业务。本周一，该公司发布了一款iPad应用程序。该应用可取代现金自动计数器，通过它，客户用自己的Android或iOS设备即可为产品付账。但是，多尔西并未提及这款应用是否具备任何近场通讯（Near Field Communications）功能，以致网络博客作者们心里直犯嘀咕。同时，据报道，本周四，谷歌会发布消息，介绍其与斯普林特公司（Sprint）合作开发近场通讯技术的一些新进展。 周三， TechCrunch Disrupt大会在纽约市举行。会上，TrialPay公司首席执行官兼联合创始人阿莱克斯•蓝贝尔、谷歌商业与支付部门的斯坦芬尼•蒂兰尼厄斯、变形合作伙伴公司（Metamorphic Partners）的路易斯•戈什也都纷纷登台亮相，就移动商务的未来，特别是近场通讯技术发表演讲。虽然目前仍欠成熟，但近场通讯作为支付方式前景不可估量。在这种支付方式下，你的手机就相当于信用卡，但又不同于现有的Square的产品，无需任何硬件插件。 “谷歌在近场通讯上押了笔大宝。”蒂兰尼厄斯表示：“这项技术蕴含着巨大的潜力。未来10年，它会成为活生生的现实。”她还援引了星巴克（Starbucks）试用近场通讯手段的案例，该连锁公司以此方式接受了300多万个用户的付款。蒂兰尼厄斯认为，近场通讯技术简化了人们平日的生活：假设你走进一家Gap专卖店，但店里没有适合你尺寸的牛仔裤，于是你可以让店员扫描你的近场通讯信息，等有货时他们便会直接寄给你。 近场通讯的另一个益处是，具备近场通讯功能的优惠券能提供实时或者近于实时的反馈。蓝贝尔表示，如果有名顾客使用了优惠券，商家可能得花上长达两周的时间，才能收到有关该优惠券使用情况的反馈。但是，有了近场通讯功能，反馈只是弹指一挥间的事。商家不仅可以及时得到反馈，而且他们还能随时对优惠券进行调整，以促进销售，增加收益。 戈什尽管也对近场通讯的前景满怀希望，但他的发言却谨慎得多。 “近场通讯的时代即将来临，此乃大势所趋。”他表示：“但是，实用过程中其实充满了艰辛。用户通过广告可以获得折扣，那要容易得多。但是，从商业层面上说，在一个两秒钟可以成就或者摧毁一桩交易的环境里应用近场通讯，仍然存在不少需要解决的问题。”换言之，尽管近场通讯听起来像是移动支付的未来，或者可能就是移动支付的未来，但先别着急把你的信用卡扔掉。 译者：大海 |
As mobile commerce emerges, companies like Google (GOOG), Square, and reportedly Apple (AAPL) are placing their bets on some form of mobile payment where the users' smartphone becomes a credit transactional device. On Monday, Jack Dorsey's startup Square, which reported the shipment of 500,000 Square card readers and processing of $3 million in mobile payments a day, announced an iPad app that replaces cash registers and lets customers pay for products with their Android or iOS devices. But Dorsey left bloggers hanging when he didn't announce any Near Field Communications capabilities. Meanwhile tomorrow, Google will reportedly make an announcement of its own regarding new advancements in NFC with Sprint (S). Today, at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City, Alex Rampell, CEO and co-founder of TrialPay, Stephanie Tilenius of Google Commerce and Payments, and Lewis Gersh from Metamorphic Partners weighed in on the future of mobile commerce, particularly NFC, a promising, if still immature payment method where your phone acts as the credit card without the need for a hardware add-on as say, Square does. "We're making a big bet on it as a company," Tilenius of Google said. "There is a lot of potential there.Ten years from now we'll all acccept this as a reality." As an example, she referenced an NFC trial with Starbucks (SBUX) that nabbed some 3 million users. She also sees NFC making every day life easier: walk into a Gap (GAP) store, and if they don't have your size jeans, you can have your NFC scanned and have that size sent to you. Another benefit may be real-time, or near real-time feedback, from NFC-enabled coupons. If a customer uses a coupon, Rampell says it may take up to two weeks for merchants to receive feedback as to how well the coupons performed; with NFC, feedback can be instantaneous. Not only will merchants know sooner, but they can also adjust the coupon on-the-fly to achieve better sales and results. Gersh, while also extremely hopeful, struck a cautionary note. "NFC is coming. It's a wave," he said. "But there are a lot of hitches in use cases. People can get a discount from an ad. That's much more simple. But when NFC is in an environment where where 2 seconds make or break the transaction at the merchant level, there are still issues that need to be overcome." In other words, while NFC sounds like the future of mobile payments, and probably is the future of mobile payments, don't throw out your credit cards just yet. |
