ATM Card Freed and Another Smart Card

Soon, you may not need to carry your debit card in order to use an ATM. In the next step of going walletlessness, some banks will allow users to use NFC to access the ATMs.

This is definitely a significant step in eliminating the need to carry cards around. But this is also a natural step for upgrading ATMs as they prepare to become more secure with EMV chip compatibility in addition to NFC. The magnetic swipe is just too susceptible to information theft; it's common to see reports of devices that steal information at ATMs and gas stations or by an employee.

I suspect contactless mobile payments to come to gas stations in the near future, like in other parts of the world (e.g. Canada).

So what's next for mobile payments? Person to person payments. While the common money transfers between friends will probably be low, allowing businesses to accept mobile payments using their own NFC capable device will be a significant upgrade particularly for businesses that can't afford to upgrade their infrastructure to support mobile payments (or to start a business without needing to buy extra equipment).

LG is posed to compete against Coin and the unreleased Plastc in the smart card market. As more and more devices accept NFC, the less attractive these products will become. Hopefully, none of these cards will be necessary; that would be ideal.