Sometimes on phone reviews I read that a certain model, often one released in a Western market, uses NFC for payment. In my country, mobile payments use QR codes so any phone with a camera can use them. Does NFC have any advantage over such a system?


Our gov ID card and medical insurance contains NFC chips which can be used for authenticaing with your legal identity (the old school way is post identidification where the company sends a letter to your adress)
Other types of that can be payment.
For ID: I like it.
For payment: IMO the advantages are phone-less payment. I don’t need to have my phone on me whenI can tap my bank card on the terminal.
Another example:
Our public transit has a state-wide valid ticket.
The usual way you get the ticket issued is as a qr code with the local transit copany where you live.
I specifically opted for a physical card.
Why? If my phone dies, I don’t have a valid ticket. And if that happens you get get fined for it.
I could send in an objection and get it cleared by providing my ticket later at a service point but why bother? :p
Oh yes I know cards use NFC. My question was about phones.
The reason why phones is: I don’t want to carry 50 cards with me when my phone can do it.
The infrastructure for cards was already there. So instead of replacing the infrastructure you replace the medium.