With proximity technology embedded, swiping a mobile phone across a reader turns it into a transactional tool: whether the transaction is a purchase of a newspaper or a cappuccino, or the debit of a single-journey on the metro. In this report, ARCchart examines the market emerging around handset proximity payments and the impact it will have on industry players.

There are still technical and industry hurdles which must be overcome before handset proximity payments become a mass market reality. While network operators stand the most to gain, they risk ceding control to the handset vendors, or even the financial companies, if they do not engage the industry more proactively. By positioning themselves as the gatekeeper of the proximity applications resident on a handset, subscribers moving to a competing operator would be forced to obtain a new set of payment applications - switching operators would be like losing a wallet, and this would have a significant impact on churn.

This report provides an extensive analysis on handset proximity payments: the technologies, players, the market movements and the trends which are emerging. Topics of coverage include:

• Discussion of credit, debit and stored-value payment systems
• Security techniques used in card systems
• Consumer attitudes to proximity payments
• The handset proximity payment ecosystem - technology companies and standards bodies
• The architecture of a proximity payment system
• Issues with proximity security
• Review of technologies capable of deliver proximity functionality on a handset
• The structure of an NFC payment system
• Case studies of commercial and trial mobile phone proximity payment systems
• Innovative applications made possible with handset payments
• Effective deployment strategies
• Threats facing the deployment of handset proximity payment systems
• Forecast timelines for the deployment NFC and handset payment systems going forward

Answers and opinions are provided with respect to the following essential questions:

• Who are the technology and financial companies driving this market forward?
• What strategies are the financial companies adopting to drive handset payments?
• What is FeliCa, and how is it related to the EDY payment system?
• Why is NTT DoCoMo aggressively pushing forward FeliCa, and why have competing operators (KDDI and Vodafone) also decided to use FeliCa?
• What are the issues which must be resolved before NFC is ready to support proximity payment functionality on handsets?
• Are there roles for the SIM and/or removable media?
• Is there a revenue position for handset vendors, and what strategies should they adopt?
• What are the direct and indirect revenue opportunities for operators?
• What should operators be doing in order to control this market?
• Can operators' prepaid system be leveraged for proximity payments?