NFC Forum’s latest upgrade makes payments faster and more reliable
You’re in a queue at a busy station. A quick tap of your phone at the gate, and you’re through. No delays, no need to line things up perfectly. This simple act is now more consistent, thanks to a quiet but important change in contactless payment technology.
On June 17, the NFC Forum introduced an update, expanding the operational range of NFC technology from 0.5 cm to 2 cm. The change is designed to make transactions faster, reduce the likelihood of failed connections, and improve usability for small or embedded devices, including wearables.
NFC Release 15: What’s changed?
The main technical advancement in NFC Release 15 is the extended “operating volume” – the space in which two NFC-enabled devices can connect. This expansion means less need for precise alignment and faster initial handshakes between devices.
According to NFC Forum, this improvement will reduce friction in high-traffic settings, such as payment terminals or transit gates, while also increasing reliability in scenarios where users interact with embedded or hard-to-align tags, including keyless entry systems, smart packaging, or IoT sensors.
NFC Release 15 is the result of collaboration between major tech companies including Apple, Google, Huawei, NXP, Sony, and others. The update reflects one of the key priorities in NFC Forum’s five-year roadmap: enhancing ease of use while maintaining the core principle of “user intent”; ensuring that actions only occur when the user deliberately initiates them.
Initial access to the Release 15 specifications is now open to NFC Forum Associate, Principal and Sponsor-level members. Wider public access and certification will follow from autumn 2025.
Businesses in payments, mobility and consumer tech will now need to assess whether their current solutions are ready to support the new standard. While the range increase is modest in absolute terms, the functional impact is meaningful especially where speed, reliability and small-form-factor integration are business critical.
Certification programmes will become available later in 2025, with NFC Forum encouraging developers and product teams to begin evaluating compatibility now.
A wider role for NFC in sustainability and lifecycle data
The release also plays a role in NFC Forum’s sustainability strategy. It supports the Digital Product Passport (DPP) standard, a framework allowing brands to store and transmit product lifecycle data using a single NFC tag. This includes manufacturing, usage and recycling information, making NFC a key enabler in circular economy models.
By ensuring compatibility and performance across a broader range of NFC devices, Release 15 supports more consistent data capture, identity verification and compliance use cases, particularly relevant as ESG requirements continue to grow.
