The NFC Report
About the editor
The NFC Report's editor is Sarah Clark, a seasoned technology analyst with more than twenty years experience investigating and reporting on the business implications of emerging technologies.
Sarah began her career in 1983 as a researcher and writer specialising in emerging point-of-sale technologies — explaining to bankers, retailers and their suppliers the business potential of ground-breaking new technologies such as bar codes, electronic cash registers and magnetic stripe cards.
Sarah went on to author the world's first research report on smart cards in 1986 and, as founder and group publisher of SJB Research, founded the respected industry newsletter Card Technology Today in 1989. There she was responsible for carrying out some of the very earliest research into the business potential of the SIM and launched the world's first publications dedicated to biometrics and to customer loyalty — Biometric Technology Today and Customer Loyalty Today.
As such, for more than two decades, Sarah has reported extensively on the numerous ways in which banks, transit operators and others around the world have sought to reduce the use of cash and to introduce some kind of universally accepted electronic wallet.
"NFC shares many similarities with the early days of the smart card industry, particularly with the electronic purse. Everyone thought cash would be redundant by now and we'd all be using electronic money instead," explains Sarah. "But the business issues were very complicated and, in the end, consumer demand wasn't strong enough to overcome the commercial barriers.
"With NFC, though, it is different. Consumers love using NFC and it's that consumer demand that is set to drive adoption forward as service providers see the opportunity to use NFC as a competitive differentiator."
Sarah continues to be involved in retail technology as web editor of Internet Retailing, and with smart cards as commissioning editor of Smart Card Technology International and, of course, has been involved with near field communication for the past year in her role as conference director of the NFC World Congress.
