Seventy-eight percent of participants in London’s near field communication trial said they would use the technology again, according to a Finextra news report. The six-month pilot was run by mobile operator O2 with Transport for London, device manufacturer Nokia, and card issuer Visa and TranSys, the group that runs the Oyster card system.
The conglomerate gave 500 Londoners NFC-enabled devices that could be swiped across Oyster card readers in London Underground stations and in buses. Barclaycard also credited 225 of the 500 phones with $350 worth of non-reloadable funds for making low value contactless payments at retailers, including Books Etc, Chop’d, Coffee Republic, EAT, Krispy Kreme, Threshers and YO! Sushi.
The pilot was conducted between November 2007 and May 2008 and found that nine out of ten participants were happy using NFC technology. The Oyster functionality was also popular with 89% of participants saying they would use this service and 87% saying the availability of the service would influence their purchase of a new phone.
Participants said convenience was the main benefit of the system, but some would like to be able to manage accounts and view Oyster and Barclaycard balances through the application.
O2 wants to bring together an industry working group to work on bringing NFC to everyday life.
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