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Bribes Make Citibank India’s NFC Trial Work Well
“Bengaluru is a technology hot spot where a large number of ambitious technology-savvy young Indians live and work. The innovative idea of using a mobile phone to make mobile proximity payments caught the imagination of many such customers who signed-up to try it,” the report said. “Young, educated urbanites with a natural affinity for advanced gadgetry are natural first adherents to any new technological innovation.”
Other than not wanting to carry two phones, the key complaints of participants were that far too few retailers participated and the quality of the phone itself.
As for the shortage of retailers, that’s a result of both the limits of any trial and the limits of any new technology. Catch-22: It’s hard to get a lot of retailers to sign up when there are very few consumers with NFC devices, and it’s hard to get consumers to sign up when there are very few places where they can make NFC purchases.
The most likely breakthrough will be some interested party—Citi and Chase, on the banking front, or perhaps some major carriers or handset manufacturers—funding both sides to artificially increase the numbers until natural momentum (hopefully) kicks in and it can grow organically.
The phone complaints may also be limited to the trial, as it made sense to partner with one particular phone. In a full deployment, there would presumably be quite a range of phone options.
The Nokia unit used in the Bengaluru trial proved, though, to be especially unpopular. “Those who did try to use the Nokia NFC phone to substitute for their regular handset or use it as a replacement handset expressed dissatisfaction with the device,” the report said. “Strong negative feedback was received on a variety of phone-related problems.”
Among the problems cited: “The Nokia NFC phone hangs up and then suddenly reboots itself, causing disruption and leading customers not to rely on the device for their regular communication needs” and “customers indicated that there were some basic problems with the Nokia NFC handset such as defects with the volume control or the speakerphone.”
“All this contributed to the image of forcefully overlaying old furniture with new varnish, of installing new features on an old machine,” the report said. “This inhibits the take-up and use of a new product, no matter how useful it may be, as the overall package is perceived to have basic problems that customers no longer have any tolerance for.”
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
