January 13, 2015 - The use of mobile phones for making in-store payments is set to grow by 1000% during 2015, marking a mass-market tipping point for NFC-enabled transactions, forecasts Deloitte.

2015 will be the first year in which the multiple prerequisites for mainstream adoption - satisfying financial institutions, merchants, consumers and device vendors - have been sufficiently addressed, says Deloitte in its annual technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) report.

It predicts that about five percent of the base of 600 million NFC equipped smartphones worldwide will be used to make an in-store NFC payment at least once a month, compared to less than half a percent of about 450 million NFC phones in mid-2014.

Despite the upsurge, contactless mobile payment will not be mainstream by end-2015, but niche adoption will be a major progression from near nil in prior years, says the consultancy.

"We expect the volume of NFC-smartphone transactions and the range of spend value to increase steadily over time as consumers become more familiar with the process, and more banks and merchants in more markets accept this form of transaction," states the report. "However, contactless mobile payments will likely co-exist for some time with all other means of payment, from contactless credit cards to cash. It will be a long while before the majority of us can jettison our physical wallets."