Asian Contactless Wallet Trials Faring Poorly
Written by Evan SchumanFor years, Asia has taken the lead in anything that intersects consumers and wireless, with Europe one notch behind Asia and the U.S. a good two notches behind Europe. It should be no surprise that the same pattern had emerged with the rolling out of various contactless applications, especially RFID-embedded credit/debit cards.
With that in mind, this story from CardTechnology is quite eye-opening, with a look at how Asian consumers are simply not taking to a major Japanese trial with contactless mobile-wallet phones from telco NTT DoCoMo and a major railroad.
Some 13 months after its much-anticipated launch in January 2006, only 350,000 customers had signed up for the mobile service. That’s only about a third of what the commuter rail operator had expected. Nor was 2006 a breakthrough year for any of Japan’s other contactless payment schemes that have launched service on wallet phones, known as “Osaifu-Keitai” in Japan. This piece is definitely worth reading if you’re considering any contactless payment project this year.
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I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
