The 'future of money' goes mobile

Using your mobile phone as a digital purse, that's exciting.

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The 'future of money' goes mobile

Near Field Communications (NFC) offers shoppers the opportunity to wave a card or a phone near a sensor and beep, a coffee or train fare is paid for. David Reid travelled to Monaco to see the applications that might help NFC take off.

A lot of cash clings to this rocky tax-free outcrop, a fact that may have spurred trials of NFC which has been touted as the future of money. It turns a phone into a digital purse that can read the chips and radio tags buried in smart posters from a distance of a few centimetres.

In one example application the data tells the phone to add a charge for a ticket to a football match.