The head of R&D for the online operations of Tesco's, one of the world's largest retailers, has expressed security concerns with NFC. Nick Lansley has come out saying that "NFC is not as safe as people make it out to be". Essentially he is concerned that outside parties are able to pick up (or eavesdrop) the signal that is transmitted between the retailer's terminal and the customer's phone.
Although Mr Lansley emphasised that he was speaking on his own, not Tesco's, behalf, these are the type of concerns that could stall NFC adoption. Of course, this is not a new concern. It has long been acknowledged that NFC is vulnerable to eavesdropping, but that a third party will only pick up a customer's account number and possibly their name, but not sufficient information to perform card fraud.
Still it will be interesting to see if other prominent retailers will have similar concerns and to what extent it will impact retailer and consumer adoption.
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