Kenyan carrier Safaricom is to add NFC payment capabilities to its flagship M-Pesa mobile money service, according to Techmoran.”Still undergoing the tendering process, the NFC SIM cards are expected to be rolled out to its subscribers for mobile contactless payments and transactions making Safaricom the first mobile operator in the region to mass deploy SIM-based NFC for contactless transactions,” the report says.
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If counterfeit money becomes a big problem then £10 and £20 notes may have to be withdrawn only leaving £5 notes.
Solutions such as M-PESA would become very useful operating over NFC and Bluetooth. There may be patent issues with NFC but Bluetooth is not too much of a problem since the Bluetooth receiver of cash tills can be left on. The mobile phone just needs to switch its Bluetooth receiver on before communicating and then turning the radio chip off after payment!
Phone to Phone over Bluetooth is not too much of a problem either. The payment receiver launches the Money App which turns on the Bluetooth receiver on his phone. After the payment sender has zapped across the money the receiver can see the amount transferred for confirmation before closing down the App which turns off the Bluetooth or leaves it in the state that it was before the App launched!