“Growth in the m-payments marketplace will be driven by customers' increasing need for convenience and the development of a raft of new applications enabling commerce in the palm of our hands. Today premium SMS dominates mobile payments, but by tomorrow contactless and cloud-based services will dominate, with an expected market share for contactless of 37 percent by 2015,” said David Hodgkinson, senior manager in KPMG's customer and channel consulting team.

That, in effect, is a buoyant outlook for the future of NFC payments.

Gerry Penfold, a KPMG partner, said in a statement, “There is certainly scope for collaboration between smartphone manufacturers, telecom companies and retailers but the big, unanswered question revolves around who the customer will trust with their data and their m-cash. Battle lines will be drawn around issues such as security, infrastructure and interoperability of devices. For consumers, speed and security of payment will be the mark of success, but for technology and telecoms companies, speed to market will be critical and how quickly they can respond will depend on the impact of regulation. Clearly, though the winners will be the companies that can provide the richest consumer experience with the greatest convenience.”