The UK Payments Council has predicted that mobile phones will supplant debit cards over the next few years.
Despite the £179bn ($277bn) increase in plastic card spending between 2005 and 2011, the Council forecasted that card payments may be scaled down if it becomes possible to use phones to make debit-type payments.
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The Payments Council report, called The way we pay, states: "Paying a friend or business on your mobile as easily as sending a text is set to become a mainstream option in spring 2014, when the Payments Council launches the new mobile payments service.
"The service will be the first to link up every bank account in the country with a mobile number."
The report goes on to suggest that the traditional wallet may become obsolete as more payments go electronic and phones become the hub of our financial transactions.
Adrian Kamellard, chief executive of the Payments Council, spoke of a ‘quiet revolution’ in payments, which has seen the creation of whole new industries. E-shopping, for example, changed our behaviour, and increased the speed and efficiency with which we pay each other.
"The next ten years will see even faster change. It’s easy to imagine a future where we merely pat our pockets for our keys and phone. The wallet could become a historical curiosity," he said.
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By GlobalData"The 2000s were the decade of the debit card. The 2010s are likely to be the decade of the mobile phone."
The Payments Council – an organisation of financial institutions in the UK – sets the strategy for UK payment mechanisms.
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