It appears that it’s full steam ahead in the mobile payments game known as Near Field Communication or NFC as GSMA members have pledged their commitment to NFC tech implementation in “some markets” by the year 2012.

According to an article over on V3, the chairman of the GSMA and chief exec of Telecom Italia, Franco Bernabè, has said “NFC represents an important innovation opportunity, and will facilitate a wide range of interesting services and applications for consumers, such as mobile tickets, mobile coupons, the exchange of information and content, access to cars, homes, hotels, offices, car parks and much more.”

Apparently mobile operators who have signed up to the NFC commitment are, Vodafone, Orange, Telecom Italia, Deutsche Telekom, China Unicom and América Móvil.

Also apparently the GSMA has stated that development will centre on SIM cards as a secure way of delivering payment portability, payment security and payment authentication.

Principal communications and convergence analyst at Quocirca, Rob Bamforth, commented on the GSMA move… “It’s good that they are talking about more than just standards. They’re actually talking about them being used to deliver applications people might actually want to use.”

What ever happened about paying by cash? Would you trust paying for items via your mobile phone? Personally I think I won’t use NFC even if it is available as I still believe the safest way to pay is with the good old coin.