Little by little, contactless (NFC) awareness, in this case with respect to mobile payment, is happening, plus interesting information about consumer preferences with respect to this. Below is some information from a recent survey (end of 2007) by ABI Research on this topic:

From ABI Research’s Mobile and Contactless Payments: End-User Survey Analysis and ContactlessNews’ Survey shows that US consumers want simple payment features for NFC phones.

“Mobile and Contactless Payments” survey, carried out at the end of 2007, reveals that initially at least, consumers prefer a single account that is easy to manage on the handset.

“Our survey revealed a number of important attitudes toward contactless payments among US consumers,” says principal analyst Jonathan Collins. “The desire for a single and separate account on NFC handsets, for example, provides a heads-up to existing credit and debit card suppliers that new or separate products may be required to keep customers as they move to mobile payments. Furthermore, it shows potential for new and specialized mobile payment providers to step in, as users turn to NFC-enabled payments.”

“Other key findings from the survey include consumer attitudes toward handset security and toward potential account fees, issues that mobile operators and their NFC payment partners will have to tackle ahead of any successful contactless handset payment deployment.”

The survey was a structured online questionnaire, completed by 1005 respondents in the United States. Respondents were required to be current mobile phone users and to have Internet access in their homes. Only people aged 14 to 59 participated in the study. Respondents were grouped in five age and five income categories.

The survey tells that “consumers prefer a single account”… That is interesting. A single account, different from the other existing accounts a user may have? I believe the reason for this is centered on security concerns, and if such concerns are properly addressed, that people would really prefer to use their existing accounts right from their handsets: their existing Visa, or MasterCard, etc.

Related to this see: