58 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JANUARY 2013
FEATURE
IM SWANSON, A TECHNOLOGY PRACTITIONER
at Burnet, Duck-
worth & Palmer LLP in Calgary, has what looks like a skinny chess
pawn on his car keys. It's a fob. When he wants to fill up, all he has to
do is pull in to an Esso station and pump the gas; the fob takes care of
everything else. It's a conduit to his credit card, so he's charged for the
gas. It collects his Air Mile points, his Esso Extra points and once Esso's
computers run the fob account over to his bank, his credit-card points as well.
Welcome to the new frontiers of the cashless future. Honestly, unless you're a
tech geek, you probably have no idea of what's about to hit. With the help of near-
field communication technology, mobile-payment applications are revolutionizing
daily commerce. One day soon, and probably a lot sooner than you might imagine,
you won't need to carry a bulky wallet. You'll carry a digital wallet. Everything you
need – including your credit cards, store cards, gi cards, points cards and transit
pass – will be stored on your smart phone.
In the US, Google has partnered with MasterCard, Citigroup and Sprint Nextel
to develop the Google Wallet. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile USA are working
on a rival mobile-payments app called Isis. And similar alliances are being negoti-
While the market
for mobile
payments is
evolving
at a rapid pace,
the law
is still lagging
far behind
J
The End
of Cash
BY SANDRA RUBIN
