Tap-to-pay and self-checkouts have felt critically under-utilized for years, so I’m extremely happy that a new concept from the NFC Forum is looking to change that.
The concept is simply called ‘Multi-purpose Tap’ and, in theory, it would allow you to tap your card, phone or smartwatch to a payment terminal, and then it would transfer money, loyalty points, check the ID and share the receipt all at once. This means you no longer need to navigate through endless screens on a self-checkout machine, and you could tap once to get all the information you’d want from a normal transaction.
There are worries that this could cause unwanted marketing spam to appear on your device and it could make opting out of a company’s email communications more difficult, according to The Verge. That being said, maybe there will be some kind of ‘Hide my email’ feature implemented that allows you to use a fake email address to help avoid some of these unwanted communications.
Overall, there’s a lot that can go right and wrong with this idea, but I think it’s worth it since it’s a concrete step towards making our phones arguably smarter in everyday use.
Header image credit: Shutterstock
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