How’s everyones experience been using tap to pay NFC payments in Kenya so far? Mine has been very hit or miss so far.
Surprisingly, I’ve managed to get Apple Pay to work very well using a foreign card of mine but my physical card from Absa works when it wants.
I gave up searching for places to use NFC payments. When you find one even the cashier is reluctant to encourage you to use it. Currently I find QR code scanning on Mpesa to be really effective and quick, I don’t know why they never market it since almost everyone can use it
NFC is a technology that seems to have been passed by with other contactless payment methods like QR-codes.
NFC is huge in developed countries. Things like google and apple pay (use nfc) are huge in every modders community I am a member of. There are tons of people who won’t install any custom rom that doesn’t pass safetynet (needed for google pay to work).
Us wanting our mpesa QR codes to be universally accepted are just third world problems. We’re that guy at the club who can’t afford a bottle of hennessy so who was draft beer made for?
Remember that mpesa tried to promote contactless payment using their MPesa one tap bracelets and key fobs. (Is that still a thing by the way?) Kenyans are just not ready (or willing) to wholeheartedly embrace contactless payment. Maybe in a few years but I can assure you that when it happens, NFC will be at the center.
I agree with you about NFC being a big deal in the west but your analogy is off . QR codes are huge in the east and more feasible in a country where most people don’t have phones with NFCs.
QR codes are not a “poor” person’s contactless payment but a capable alternative. If Safaricom marketed QR codes it could improve adoption of NFC if people understood how contactless payment works
contactless NFC payments can work if implemented in the right social constructs,like ticketing for events and public transit
