Cell Phones to Pay for Movies and More

Short on cash and there's no ATM in sight? Sure, you could use a credit card, but if all you want is a quick coffee, you might be out of luck since most retailers require a minimum for credit card purchases. But Nokia might have a solution for you. One of the cooler demos I got at CES was the Nokia 6131 phone with NFC (near field communication) capability.

NFC is a wireless RFID technology that lets you make money transactions or swap other info with just a tap. It works like this: You tap your NFC-enabled phone on an NFC-enabled soda machine, movie poster, or other phone, and presto, you've paid for a soda or movie tickets, or maybe you've swapped business cards. Cashless, electronic payments using your cell phone have been a reality in places like Japan and Korea for quite a while now, but the only U.S. implementations have been with highway or bridge tolls (such as EZ Pass) or RFID-enabled key fobs such as the Citibank/MasterCard PayPass.

I was impressed with Nokia's CES demo, in which I was shown how the service might work with said movie posters, business cards, and even a photo printer. For example, I took a picture of myself, then tapped the phone on the NFC-enabled printer and had a printout within seconds. Essentially, the NFC-tap initiated the Bluetooth pairing without the need for all those individual steps and passwords (basically acting as a macro of sorts to get Bluetooth up and running). Anyone who has ever had Bluetooth-pairing headaches will understand how this could come in handy.

Of course, there's the issue of security, but the NFC devices ask you to enter a password every time you try and do a financial transaction. And you can always turn NFC detection off.

The NFC-enabled Nokia 6131 is set to launch in Europe in the next couple of months for about $340, but no word on a U.S. release yet.

Would you use your cell phone to make cashless payments, or are you okay with just using a credit card?

 

Related links:

Getting Swiped with a No-Swipe Credit Card

New Wallet Safeguards Your Smart Cards