Research Reveals the Majority of Retailers Are in Favor of Mobile Contactless Payments

Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), surveyed 180 companies to outline the implications and trends related to proximity mobile payments. Retail, hospitality, and transit companies are indicating high levels of awareness for mobile payments and NFC acceptance. Eighty percent (80%) of companies surveyed are aware of this technology today compared to 63% in 2007. More significant is the fact that 52% of companies are exploring the use of mobile payment solutions for improving payment seamlessness, customer differentiation, and loyalty within the next 24 months.

"It is evident from our data that the number of companies that are aware of and executing the initial steps involving mobile payments and NFC acceptance has doubled in 2008 compared to 2007 due to mobile payments ecosystem development as well as the changing economic climate," says Sahir Anand, senior analyst and chief author of the multi-channel benchmark report. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5299 .

Customer convenience was the key business pressure driving 64% of Best-in-Class retailers towards advanced POS payments such as contactless payments in 2007. This year, the top business pressure facing 40% of Best-in-Class retailers is the need for improved customer retention and loyalty, in addition to customer convenience as the next predominant pressure for 35% of Best-in-Class retailers. "The building blocks for any retail strategy in the mobile commerce sphere has to take into consideration the return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent on upgrading the payment acceptance environment at the POS," says Anand. While all three maturity classes are assessing cost benefit factors in substantial numbers, Best-in-Class are twice as likely as Laggard companies to currently take the next leap in assessing the change management functions including transaction risk assessment, cross-channel process impact, data management, hardware, and POS software changes required for a smooth migration path towards the use and acceptance of mobile payments at POS. Aberdeen's data shows that the mobile payments technology landscape is in the early stages of the development lifecycle. In the last 2 years, advances have been made in the areas of mobile wallet and NFC applications for remote and proximity payments, hardware components that are integrated at the point-of-sale, and the mobile payment services elements related payment gateway and data services. However, this landscape will continue to reform and develop further in terms of user interface (UI), and integrated standards for configurability and extensibility, both for payments and marketing functions.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Gemalto and FirstData. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5299 .

To access all of Aberdeen's complimentary research please visit http://research.aberdeen.com .

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen(TM) for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com .

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Media Contact: Sahir Anand Retail Analyst Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617) 854-5271 Sahir.Anand@aberdeen.com