NFC concept wants to add receipts, tickets, and more to each Google Pay tap

The NFC Forum is looking to advance the standard with a “multi-purpose tap” concept that combines payments with other common interactions. The idea is to make each transaction richer and faster.

If you’re at a store, tapping to pay “could automatically apply relevant customer discounts and add loyalty points,” while also transferring a receipt or other product information (like how something can be recycled) directly to your phone. This would help eliminate paper receipts and physical loyalty cards (or having to scan a separate QR code). Another use could be verifying a “person’s age for restricted purchases,” like alcohol. 

Another example is how “electric vehicle owners will be able to initiate the vehicle charging process and simultaneously pay for it by tapping their smartphone with the required charging station app against the terminal.”

For transit, multi-purpose tap’s “bidirectional exchange of information” can be used to issue e-tickets that can be easily checked and provide fares that take into account taxes and concessions. 

…fare collectors on public transport would be able to accept payment, issue and validate tickets on the go, all with one tap of a passenger’s device on the inspector’s device.

NFC multi-purpose tap is currently an “emerging concept” at the “ideation stage.” The standards body — which counts Apple, Google, Sony, Qualcomm, and others as members — believes that implementation could be seamless given people’s familiarity with NFC.  

Having one unified standard might mean that merchants, transit agencies, and other third-parties don’t have to separately optimize for Android and iOS.

For Google, this could enhance Google Pay with Google Wallet presumably housing all these new features.