“There is now no question over whether it is time for banks to establish their position in the game,” comments Zaf Kazmi, Co-chair of the HCE Working Group, Mobey Forum, and Head of Mobile Payments & Mobile Commerce, CaixaBank. “The fight is on for the attention and loyalty of their customers, and some of the most powerful and wealthy organisations in the world are now in the ring. The big challenge facing banks is how to formulate a go-to-market strategy given the range of deployment options now available, each with their own intricacies, benefits and limitations. Our paper aims to contrast these different options in a bid to bring some clarity to this process.”

Kristian T Sørensen, Co-chair of the HCE Workgroup, Mobey Forum and Senior Manager, Corporate Strategy at Nets, adds: “To defend their ground and stay on top, banks need to be loyal to their own customer base and be guided by an objective to offer the best service possible. If they remain true to these values and actively demonstrate them in the mobile solutions they bring to market, their customers will respond accordingly. What is crucial, however, is that banks do their upmost to stay at the front end of the customer experience, otherwise brand recognition, customer loyalty and profits will move elsewhere.”

“Given the momentum now evident in the global NFC market, it seems hardly possible that only 18 months have passed since ‘the death of NFC’ was being debated,” adds Sirpa Nordlund, Executive Director, Mobey Forum. “The entire ecosystem has changed in a very short space of time. Google may have kicked off the revolution with its host card emulation (HCE) announcement back in 2013, but we need to give Apple the credit for creating consumer desire and galvanising the wider industry.

“Ultimately, it is for each bank to draw its own conclusions and formulate its own strategy, but by continuing to stall on mobile NFC deployment, banks are playing a dangerous game. The big players are moving and, for the most part, banks are lagging behind. We’ve said it before, but this message has never had more weight: the time for talk is done. In fact, the time for action may already be passing us by.”

Thought leaders from more than 30 member companies contributed to the development of the paper as part of the association’s HCE Workgroup.

The paper is available for download free of charge from here.