Rumour: iPhone 5 will let you pay for stuff with NFC technology

Paying for stuff with your mobile phone has been the next big thing for some time now, but it hasn’t slipped into mainstream usage yet.

Apple, of course, has its beady eye on such things, having filed patents for a number of Near Field Communication applications in the past. Indeed, it’s even filed for a patent on an NFC iPhone.

Now the company has taken a major step forward in this area with the appointment of Benjamin Vigier, an expert in NFC, as their product manager of mobile commerce. Vigiers has worked for NFC-related companies such as Mobile Wallet and mFoundry, and he also worked in the NFC department at Sandisk.

Could this mean that the iPhone 5 will boast NFC technology as one of its defining technologies? Will you be paying for your groceries with it? Time will tell.