Venyon

9 September 2008

London's NFC trial has been a success

The prospect of using a mobile phone to make purchases or pay for travel took a step forward with the results from Europe’s largest trial of NFC technology on a mobile phone revealing clear consumer demand for such services.

Nine out of ten trialists were happy using NFC technology on a mobile phone and 78% said they would be interested in using contactless services if available. Convenience, ease-of-use and the status of having such an innovative device were seen as the main benefits.

The O2 Wallet trial took place over six months between November 2007 and May 2008 and involved 500 trialists. It tested consumer demand for having cards you would normally carry in a wallet, such as Oyster card for travel around London and credit cards, available on a Nokia 6131 NFC mobile phone. To travel on London’s transport system or make purchases in retail stores, the user simply touched the phone against a reader. The trial involved a range of industry leaders including O2, Transport for London, Barclaycard, Visa Europe, TranSys, Nokia and AEG.

Venyon managed the Over The Air (OTA) services including the OTA download and personalization of the Barclaycard pre-paid payment application and corresponding user-interface application (Visa Mobile Application).

Oyster on Mobile

Having Oyster on their mobile phone actually increased trialists’ use of public transport. One in five (22%) trialists using Pay as You Go Oyster reported that they increased the number of journeys they made on public transport during the trial. Overall, almost 50,000 tube journeys took place using the O2 Wallet during the six month trial.

Other key findings around Oyster on mobile include:

• 67% said that they found it more convenient to use than a standard Oyster card.
• 87% said that availability of the service would be likely to influence their purchase of a new mobile phone.

Contactless Payments on Mobile

A selection of trialists were provided with the Barclaycard Visa payWave application on the Nokia 6131 NFC mobile phone and following the trial with over two-thirds stating that they would be interested in using cashless payments on their mobile in the future. In addition, nearly half (47%) of trialists stated that being able to use their mobile to make payments would influence their choice of handset in the future.