NFC based mobile payments tipped for 2015 take-off

Deloitte is tipping more than a tenfold increase in the number of smartphones being used to make contactless payments: from just 0.5 percent of NFC-equipped mobile phones in 2014 to five percent of global population of some 650 million NFC capable smartphones by the end of 2015. Deloitte, in its Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2015, says these phones will be "used at least once a month to make contactless in-store payments at retail outlets." Contactless mobile payment will not be mainstream by end-2015, but "niche adoption will be a major progression from near nil in prior years," Deloitte says.