Many research reports have forecast substantial growth in the population of NFC handsets and in the number of commercially available applications. For example, Global Industry Analysts’ projection that 1.6 billion NFC handsets will be sold round the world in 2018 is based not only on falling prices and rising demand for smartphones in general, but also on increased penetration of NFC in consumer devices [1]. Most NFC technology players are equally bullish.

However, the success of NFC is still not guaranteed and revenue-generating applications in particular remain few and far between. Few of the NFC handsets in the world today have carried out an NFC transaction. The forecast growth is at best conditional on several things taking place, and may in fact never come to pass if some key players do not fulfill the roles expected of them in the NFC ecosystem.

This chapter considers the next steps that must be taken for some of the more complex applications in particular to become a reality.

Technology

In the short term, NFC technology developments are likely to focus on refinement rather than major breakthroughs or new features. The technology itself is not the limiting factor.

Standards

The existing standards (mainly ISO 18092 and 14443 and their ECMA equivalents) are stable and no major shortcomings have been found. Active communications mode is used much less than the authors anticipated but this is mainly because the passive modes have proved adequate for most purposes; switching modes adds complexity and often slows down transactions.