#What is NFC

The rise of contactless payments has brought more uses to NFC technology which has been present in our smartphones for quite some time now. You might have seen users tapping their phone to a Bluetooth peripheral to have an easy pairing process or you might have seen people tapping their phones get to Japan's subway system, some people call it magic, but we call it NFC. The rise of contact-based payments has brought more uses for NFC technology, which has been present in our smartphones for quite some time now. You may be familiar with NFC if you have tried using it to facilitate the pairing process of some Bluetooth peripherals, or if you have seen people tapping their phones to get through the stations in Japan’s subway systems. In this article we rundown what it is, how it works, and what it can be used for. NFC, or Near Field Communication, is a technology built into modern smartphones, computers, and other consumer electronics. A range of devices can use the NFC standard and will be considered either passive or active. Active devices are able to both send and receive data, whether it's with other active NFC devices or passive ones. Read more in our articles including "WATCH: NFC Explained" and "NFC Explained".