Sign in / up

back to article Vodafone wants to bonk you… wait, wants you to bonk

NFC payment tech for phones, aka bonking, is coming to an Android Vodamobe near you. Not put off by the failure of the O2 wallet and Orange CityZi payment systems, Voda has teamed up with payments processing tech company Carta Worldwide to add bonking to its mobile wallet. In the internal war of NFC technologies the new …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      ...Because in the world where people have multiple NFC-enabled cards, this allows one to assign the id of their favoured payment card to their phone - meaning you only have to grab your phone out of your pocket to pay - rather than the current scramble to get your wallet out of your pocket and find/extract the correct card.

      Of course however, as someone else pointed out already, this also allows a pickpocket to grab your phone and start paying for things on it too ...

      0 0 Reply

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          I think there is an electronic NFC card in the states which allows you to program it as you describe. It's only a mag strip device so not much use over here. The security system sounds great but really isn't workable as the call centre would be swamped with people asking what the next colour is. I'm not really sure why you think a smartphone would be so much worse when it could be bonked in exactly the same way and display anything you would want to put on a physical card?

          0 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Exactly how is carrying a card and a phone around supposed to be easier than just carrying a phone?

      0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I love this idea....

    ...more people waving a ~£500 device around in areas well known for pick pockets and muggers. What can go wrong?

    4 1 Reply
  3. Vimes

    In the internal war of NFC technologies the new service uses the operator-favouring Single Wire Protocol (SWP), which puts the secure element in the SIM card, while the bank-favouring Host Card Emulation (HCE) puts the secure element in the phone.

    SIM cards are any better than the phone with regards to security? Really? People still think that after what happened with Gemalto?

    Incidentally if you're using the 3UK network then your SIM card has been provided by Gemalto. I have no idea what the state of play is with the other networks.

    0 2 Reply

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Irongut

    "new tokenisation technology recently announced by Visa... creates a token on the SIM using Verified by Visa authentication."

    So Visa only then? Ignoring the billions of Mastercard, Amex, etc users.

    Not that I have any interest in using it. I still prefer cash to using a card for most transactions, let alone bonking.

    1 0 Reply

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NFC - No Fuckin' Chance.

    5 1 Reply
  6. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Funny how all these schemes suddenly get noticed

    when the juggernaut that is Apple Pay is coming along the road.

    I'm more of a cash person than anything (and I dont have a smartphone) so I'm unlikely to use any of the solutions but it does seem to me that Apple have done it just about right with a KISS solution. By not holding any of the details themselves is the way forward. The other solutions just seem to be horribly complicated.

    Perhaps this is another case of the first to market is not always the best.

    0 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like