Merchant EMV hardware and software upgrades at the POS pave the road for additional contactless mobile payment transactions. Most new EMV POS hardware equipment also comes Near Field Communications (NFC) ready.  In timely fashion many new mobile payments types are hitting the market (Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, PayPal) to take advantage of the new NFC/EMV payment acceptance hardware being installed in merchant locations.  This creates a new opportunity for both in-store and eCommerce merchants if leveraged appropriately.   
 
Tapping and paying with a mobile device removes the EMV experience friction points.   Tapping and paying with a mobile device is just as frictionless as swiping a card through a mag-stripe terminal. Consumers will find the NFC transaction more convenient than an EMV card transaction, which requires dipping it in an EMV terminal, waiting for it to read the card, remembering a PIN and then pulling it out of the reader.  Consumers will likely gravitate to the NFC simpler transaction process and become more habituated to using their mobile device to pay in-store.  Furthermore, as mobile payment providers move toward digitizing consumer loyalty credentials in-app will also help reduce additional check-out friction points.   
 
More tapping and paying in-store will naturally lead to more in-app (remote mobile) payments.  As consumers become more habituated to paying with their favorite NFC mobile payment scheme they are also more likely to use the same scheme to pay online for goods and services.  Their card will already be securely stored on their phone and using it to frictionlessly pay online will be a natural extension.  Furthermore, as the mobile payments providers roll-out additional value-added services like loyalty and offers, consumer will be putting these payment types top of wallet (or rather top of phone).     
 
Now’s the time to get serious about mobile acceptance.  Merchants who are going to the time and expense to implement EMV acceptance should ensure the new acceptance equipment is also NFC capable, and that all merchant middleware and network systems can pass through NFC transaction types.  This may take some minor testing, but should be a small addition to an EMV implementation project scope of work.  NFC creates new simplified payment experiences that will help keep queues moving.   Large technology players such as Apple, Android, Samsung, and PayPal will be promoting these new payment apps over the next 18 months and merchants who have the NFC equipment ready will be poised to take advantage.  Furthermore, implementing the mobile SDKs for these new payment types for in-app/remote payments will drive additional purchase consumer behavior in the online mobile channels.