Tap-to-pay could become more capable and more complicated

At some point in the future, a new concept of “multifunctional faucet” will allow payment cards or devices like smartwatches and phones to do multiple things at once when using NFC. With this in action, a customer in a store can connect their phone with Apple Wallet or Google Pay to a terminal that simultaneously verifies their identity if they are purchasing liquor, add points to their loyalty account, pay for their products and provide them with digital receipt.

Some of the objectives of the concept are presented today in a NFC Forum PDFthe non-profit consortium of technology companies that guides and promotes the NFC standard and includes Apple, Google and Sony add to your list.

No more paper, just receipts on my phone? Sign me up. The forum says this can also be used to share details about a product, like how best to recycle it, when you use an NFC tap to pay.

However, the Multi-Purpose Tap view that the forum presents raises some privacy concerns. The forum highlights how this also means that you, the customer, no longer need to enter your details into a separate tablet next to a cash register to get your points. But “it could also be used to trigger specific, targeted marketing communications.” This is less attractive.

The details of how retailers and payment processing companies would use this in the real world are unknown, but making it too easy for a retailer to link activity to an individual profile could cause all kinds of problems.