If you’ve not yet heard of Near Field Communications, you will do soon. Telecom groups, banking conglomerates and tech giants alike are scrambling to be ready for it, with the usual business rivalries cast aside as each sector does its level best to stamp on the fingers of the opposition. O2 and the newly-minted Everything Everywhere are trying to cut banks out completely by applying to the FSA for an e-money license; Verizon, Sprint and AT&T have formed some sort of godawful unholy alliance in America to fund the rolling out of NFC-enabled terminals. Google is killing off QR codes before they’ve really even come on to the radar in favour of NFC.
Simply put, it’s because they know it’s worth billions. Maybe hundreds of billions. And everybody is going to want a piece.