It has been a long time coming, but the momentum behind the near-field communication services by European operators is gathering pace thanks to a number of recent collaborations between operators and banks in different markets. Mobile operators have realized that the provision of NFC payment services on mobile phones requires a huge amount of cooperation among operators, banks, technology providers and other service providers such as retailers and transport providers, to name just a few. However, there are still considerable challenges ahead that these ventures will have to overcome, including standardization, a lack of NFC-enabled handsets, and, most importantly, giving users an incentive to participate and use the service. Special feature