Concept and prototype design of NFC-based micro-payment ecosystem

Abstract

With the advancement of mobile communication technology, smart phones are used to make phone calls, send text messages and photos, visit websites, send e-mails, watch TV programmes, buy products and tickets, access company intranet, and so on. Especially, mobile commerce (M-commerce) allows users to conduct business transactions over portable mobile phones. This trend is amplified by the emerging near field communication (NFC) technology, which is now embedded into the smart phones. To facilitate the M-commerce process with NFC-enabled mobile devices, in this paper, we propose a micro-payment model based on both NFC and location-based services (LBS) technology. The proposed micro-payment model ties NFC and LBS via a tokenisation scheme. It aims to support small traders’ micro-payments with the ubiquitous IT technology with the targeted purpose of reinvigorating traditional marketplaces.