According to survey conducted by IMS Research, about 60% of bank consumers are interested in mobile payments.
The survey titled, "The World Market for Payment and Banking Cards – 2012 Edition" polled 700 consumers from China, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US.
IMS Research’s Financial and ID Technology Group senior analyst and the report author. Don Tait said 60% of respondents were either ‘very interested’ or ‘interested’ in a mobile phone that could replace their bank card.
"This represents a positive outcome for stakeholders involved in the mobile payments space," Tait said.
"The most positive countries who were interested in mobile phones replacing their bank cards were China, South Korea, Poland and Turkey respectively.
According to the survey about 35 million NFC-enabled handsets were shipped globally during 2011 and the shipment of NFC enabled devices has gathered pace this year.
Since the leading smartphone companies including Apple have already launched NFC-enabled handsets over the last 18 months it augurs well for the technology and applications such as mobile payments, the report added.
Tait added that despite the growth of NFC enabled devices payment cards will continue to be used for some years now.
IMS Research estimates that about 3.4 billion smart payment cards will be shipped in 2017, compared to the 1.1 billion in 2011.