It might seem a scene ripped out of a sci-fi novel. Within the year a Pentagon Federal Credit Union member will rush into a convenience store, grab a container of milk, and on the way out, will wave a smartphone at a clerk and speed out the door. No stop, no paper receipt.

"We definitely will roll this out this year, at least in pilots," said Ben Scandlen, a PenFed spokesperson. "Our research tells us a substantial percentage of our membership are very interested in mobile payments. We got ahead of the curve with iPad apps, and that worked out great for us. We believe mobile payments will be a large technology change for financial institutions and we plan to be there. You don't want to get left behind. We need to stay on top of mobile, everything is changing so fast."

Scandlen is on the money. The word in mobile today is NFC, near field communication, which is a smartphone chip that enables payments on the fly. Thus, "wave and pay" is the NFC motto.