Mobile payments coming to UK this summer

You could soon be paying for your sandwich with your mobile phone. Orange and T-mobile is preparing to roll out Everything Everywhere, the near field communication technology allowing mobile phones to make payments.

You could essentially pay for items such as your lunch, snacks or newspapers by simply tapping your mobile phone against the wifi device at the store. This technology is adopted from the current contactless debit cards that are available from the major high street banks.  The maximum amount you can spend per transaction is £15, I assume that this is a security measure as you don’t want to lose your phone and have someone else spending your money easily.

However, don’t be alarmed as it has been reported that extra security measures will be enabled if the card has been used in multiple transactions in a short time prompting the user to enter the PIN code.

This is a move in the right direction and its making it easier for users to pay for smaller items, this could affect be the death of people carrying small change and coins.

The only phone reported to have the near field communication technology enabled is the latest phone by Google, the Nexus S. Potentially Apple may have this available in the next release of the iPhone 5.