A report issued by PayPal and Forrester has indicated that mobile phone payments may replace transactions made through physical wallets as soon as 2016.
Equally, ABI research made its own predictions about Google Wallet, which is an NFC technology-based mobile payment service that will encourage a more rapid adoption of this type of transaction by the end of next year, expecting global adoption in three years.
Though the two calculations are different in terms of the timeline in which they figure these goals will be reached, the analysts still agree that the collaboration of mobile network operators (MNOs) will be critical to being able to handle the speed of touch-and-pay technology adoption by consumers.
PayPal has been promoting the growth of mobile payments among its existing customers. Recently, PizzaExpress was the first retailer in the United Kingdom to work PayPal into a mobile app that would allow customers to use their mobile devices to pay for their food at their tables in the restaurant. However, NFC has yet to be started.
According to the UK managing director of PayPal, Carl Scheible, there will soon be an elimination of the division between High Street and the online environment. He added that “Children born today will become the UK’s first ‘cashless generation’. It will be completely natural for them to pay by mobile.”
The report itself, entitled “Money: The Digital Tipping Point”, claimed consumers in the United Kingdom will be able to use their mobile devices to make High Street purchases for the first time using digital money instead of plastic cards, cash, or checks, for the first time in 2016.
