I was involved in the first introduction of paperless plastic transactions in the UK in the early 1980s so can answer this.
Cashless systems were being talked about 40 years ago and the first steps (in the UK) were taken in 1983 with the introduction of on-line credit card authorisation. The technology existed THEN for cashless payments by plastic but it took another 25 years for it to become widely accepted.
The ability for you to use your mobile (Cell/Handy) phone as a 'wallet' or 'purse' has been talked about for (at least) 15 years. The technology is available in the UK, most widely known as the Oyster card for London Transport but Barclays and others are trialling systems. Nokia were involved at an early stage.
Introducing such major changes involve four stages:
- The technology is invented.
- Everyone in the supply chain argues about who will benefit the most and, thus, who should pay the most. This takes time.
- The general public has to get use to the idea. This can take even longer and is mostly associated with the passing of the generations. For example, many older folks still insist on having a cheque book - because it's what they know. My late father had difficulty using a mobile phone and would never have considered using it as a wallet. A good example is the E-book. Many people loves paper books and cannot imagine why anyone would want to have an E-book. Younger people (typically) are growing up learning off the screen and so an E-book reader is 'natural.
- Lastly, you have to get international agreement. How long did it take for Europe wide use of your UK bank card to withdraw the cash? Consider that the UK and many places in Europe have moved to Chip-and-Pin for plastic transactions. Yet how many countries still use the multi-layer paper transaction slips? Can you get the banks of all the nationalities that might travel on EZY to agree on cashless wallets? If your bank's cashless wallet does not work with EZY and you have no cash - or they will accept no cash?
So it will be along within the next ten years, starting with small local schemes, then national then international.
The actually technology is not the problem.
PS When I had finished posting this, I was reading the BBC webnews pages and found this:
BBC News - Barcelona's Mobile World Congress to have tapas-style variety
The punchline is the closing paragraphs.
Every Mobile World Congress has a buzzword - more often than not an acronym - and this year it is likely to be NFC - Near Field Communication. [That's what Oyster use and it means you only have to 'touch' the phone to a reader and not physically interact with it.]
NFC is the technology that allows mobile phones to be turned into payment devices, replacing credit cards, loyalty cards, travel cards and other vouchers.
"All the applications that use a physical card can one day or another be transferred onto the mobile phone," said Phillippe Vallee, from Gemalto, an NFC technology firm. Paying for tapas may be about to get a lot easier.