The Smart Card Alliance's Contactless Payments Council will expand its focus to include Near Field Communications and mobile payments due to consumers' growing excitement around using mobile phones to pay for goods and services.

The newly named Contactless and Mobile Payments Council also announced new officers and a steering committee.

"Our organization has focused on raising awareness on contactless smart cards," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director at Smart Card Alliance. "The industry needs to understand that this will effect mobile payments.

"Consumers, mobile carriers, banks and technology providers are all clamoring to learn more about proximity mobile payments," he said. "The Contactless and Mobile Payments Council has quickly become a primary educational resource, delivering extensive materials on what the technology is, how it works, what implementation methods are available and what the best practices are."

Conducting and publishing research on how merchants, consumers, financial issuers, mobile operators and technology providers view contactless and mobile payments was the top priority for the Council last year.

The Council's Mobile Payments Work Group published "Proximity Mobile Payments Business Scenarios: Research Report on Stakeholder Perspectives."

This research found that 86 percent of industry stakeholders believe NFC-based proximity mobile payments will be adopted and it will happen with a "Collaboration Model," bringing together banks, carriers, merchants, handset manufacturers and other service providers.

"Our priority is to provide contactless and mobile payment educational resources that will be beneficial to the industry," Mr. Vanderhoof said. "Our work for the past 12 months has given us an understanding of what resources industry stakeholders need in this space."

The Contactless and Mobile Payments Council is made up of over 120 individuals from 48 organizations, including card issuers, payment brands, merchants, financial payment processors, terminal vendors, card manufacturers, chip vendors, systems integrators/consultants, and personalization bureaus.

New officers are:
- Chair: Deborah Baxley, IBM
- Vice chair: John Suchanec, Bank of America
- Secretary: Mohammad Khan, ViVOtech

Steering committee members are Troy Bernard, Discover Financial Services; Deana Cook, Chase; Steve Frazzini, Metropolitan Transportation Authority New York City Transit; Dan Loomis, VeriFone; Jack Jania, Gemalto; Paul Legacki, Infineon Technologies; Mark Meringolo, American Express; Ken Moy, MasterCard Worldwide; Roger Musfeldt, First Data; Ron Pinkus, Giesecke & Devrient; and Charles Walton, Inside Contactless.

The Smart Card Alliance is a nonprofit, multi-industry association working to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology.

Through specific projects such as education programs, market research, advocacy, industry relations and open forums, the Alliance keeps its members connected to industry leaders and innovative thought.

"Right now the mobile payments industry is in its infancy," Mr. Vanderhoof said. "It is waiting for the arrival of more NFC-enabled mobile phones, so it could really take off.

"Today, there is a debate there about how the payments industry and mobile carriers are going to partner to support mobile payments," he said. "In five years time there will be a more NFC-enabled mobile devices on the market and consumers will be more educated and trusting of mobile payment options."