SimplyTapp closes funding round to push HCE-based NFC payments

Interesting space to watch, but the major obstacle would be the lack of widespread contactless / NFC acceptance across the physical POS locations.

I believe that the main reason for that is that the transaction processing economics of traditional credit / debit rails are not allowing reduction of txn fees for the low value payments, where the NFC should be used primarily.

I think it depends on the maturity of the market.  The UK, for example, has quite a high number of Contactless-enabled POS devices.  Unfortunately the Issuers have not embraced a rapid roll-out.  I know most major ATM and POS Device Manufacturers are including Contactless enabled readers on all their modern offerings.

I still have concerns over how HCE claims to be a "Secure Solution" without using a SE (I know it is a deployment option detailed in the KitKat API Spec but it will hit the existing issues of the SE turf war).  NFC without exploiting a SE is akin to NFC Magstripe in my opinion (albeit it will look on paper like a dialogue with an EMV ICC using C-APDU and R-APDU).

Still a step towards a (more) mobile future hopefully.