NFC promises - But is it going to be successful or repetition of earlier debacle

I saw the news that mobile operators committing to NFC and to launch commercial services by next year. NFC is not new and in 2007, GSM released a whitepaper on NFC. In the paper GSM outlined the activities in Europe,

* Public transport ticketing - Vodafone with Nokia, Philips semiconductors
* Public transport ticketing - Bouygues Telecom, RATP, NEC, & Gemalto
* Public transport ticketing - Teliasonera (Finland), Nokia
* M-Payment, car park subsc  - Orange, Cofignoa, Vince & Fly tag
* Stadium access, ticketing  - KPN (Netherlands), Roda JC

In addition to those we've seen several activites in this region,

* Public transport (Ezlink) - Starhub (Singapore)
* M-Payment (Nets)          - SingTel (Singapore)
* M-Payment (Fasttap)       - Maxis (Malaysia)
* M-Payment                 - AIS, Kasikornbank (Thailand)

So far we've seen commerical launches in Malaysia and the take up rate (based on my observation) is far from great. Also there is news from Korea & Japan that KDDI, Softbank & SK Telekom are working on a new service which supposed to work seamlessly between both the countries.

After reading all these stories I can only say, that NFC is coming in the big way but the actual success will be pretty much dependand on how TELCO's choose to launch the services. If TELCO's choose to compete headon with the payment card industry or financial institutions then the chances of them getting succesful will be very slim. If they choose to complement them and given the fact that majority of handphones will come with NFC, the chances of augmenting their revenue will be high. It may be small but it's better than totally be out of the value chain.