The NFC Forum, a standards and advocacy association for Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, has released its NFC Money Transfer Candidate Specification (NMT). NMT gives payment service providers and consumers the opportunity to take advantage of the NFC-based payment solutions already in use worldwide as an alternative to QR code-based solutions.

The NMT solution improves the speed and efficiency of the payment process by eliminating the need for a camera or scanner used in QR code-based solutions, according to Paula Hunter, executive director, NFC Forum. It provides an open framework which can be easily used by payment service providers to map their already defined data exchange for QR code-based payment solutions with NFC communication.  

The specification works between all NFC-enabled devices such as smartphones, readers and tags. The NFC Forum NMT will be available for payment systems worldwide and does not compete with other existing solutions, such as open loop and closed loop NFC-based payments.

Candidate specifications allow interested parties in the industry to review and provide input to the document before the specification is officially adopted and published by the NFC Forum. For more information or to comment on the specification, click here.