Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Payments Using Cell Phones
The retail and banking industries are keenly interested in using a cell phone like a credit card
by waving the end of the phone near a scanner device to pay for purchases. Some people
believe that mobile device-based transactions will exceed card-based transactions.
U.S. Bank began testing the concept of a credit card “buried” inside a cell phone and the
use of no contact scanners. When two NFC devices (the scanner and cell phone) come within
about three inches of each other, they can exchange data using radio signals including
encrypted credit card account numbers. The U.S. Bank pilot supports the use of only one
credit card; however, if successful, banks and wireless service providers may allow customers
to load their “tap and go” phone with multiple credit cards or merchant reward cards. Says
Dominic Venturo, the bank vice president helping to manage the U.S. Bank pilot test:
“Anytime you can combine the phone, which most of us have in our wallet, with the bank
payment card many of us carry in our wallets, into a single system, you've created a simpler
also experimenting with “tap and go” phones.
