INSIDE Contactless today announced a three-year agreement with First Data to develop stickers that will act as contactless payment stickers. The new sticky product, called GO-Tag, will allow users to transform any object they like into a mobile payment device, simply by slapping a sticker on it.
INSIDE Contactless specialises in open-standard contactless chip technologies, with First Data providing the e-commerce and payment processing services. The product isn’t really aimed at the average consumer – First Data is handling the marketing side, and it’s aiming mostly at financial institutions and major U.S. merchants.
From the releases:
“First Data’s GO-Tag Solution represents an important step in the evolution from today’s plastic cards and fobs, offering a bridge to the future of mobile payments,” said Barry McCarthy, general manager, Mobile Commerce and Point of Sale Solutions for First Data. “Our partnership with INSIDE Contactless enables us to offer consumers an opportunity to turn just about any personal item, from a mobile phone to an employee ID badge, into a payment device.”
“This agreement highlights the versatility of our MicroPass platform to support a variety of contactless payment applications and form factors, including stickers and we look forward to working with First Data to develop other payment sticker products for them as the mobile payments market heats up,” said Charles Walton, executive vice president of payments for INSIDE Contactless. “Only INSIDE is able to offer a multi-brand, multi-application solution designed from the ground up for high-volume contactless applications, one that can be easily and quickly customized to meet specific payment market needs.”
What we think?
I really like the application possibilities of this product, but I’m not so certain about it’s future. The idea of creating thousands of tiny little transparent stickers with product sale information on them fills me with glee. You could conceivably walk through a department store and buy everything you needed by waving your phone over the ID patch. That’s the pro side. On the negative side… well, we’re resurrected the entire NFC vs. barcodes debate here. The big problem with contactless payment is that phones needs to be updated to accommodate it. Almost every phone on the market already has the capacity to download, install and run a barcode scanner – which provides pretty much the same level of convenience that contactless payment does.
