Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we didn’t have to fiddle around with so many different cards – there’s the travel card, the gym card, the debit card – you name it! For a time now technology has been around which allows you to do these payments with your mobile phone. However, as the report Commerce on the Go: Mobile Payment Systems and Solutions shows, despite the predicted success of mobile payments, the market remains immature in most countries. This can be explained by a number of technical and business issues - mobile technology environments are becoming more complex, uncertain, and disruptive.

According to the report Edy from BitWallet is the market leader, accepted in more than 71,000 convenience stores, bookshops, and coffee chains as well as at vending machines.

This year Nokia released their first Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile phone known as the 6212 a 3G handset – it will allow users to share information, access services and information easier than ever before. With this technology, they say, mobiles could finally become practical ‘virtual wallets’ by allowing owners ‘one tap’ convenience purchasing.

“With the Nokia 6212 classic, people can swap items like business cards or calendar notes by simply tapping their handsets together. With ever-increasing device functions and services available, ease-of-use is essential. One way to keep things simple is NFC,” says Jeremy Belostock, the Head of Near Field Communications, Nokia.

Despite immature market, EurActive.com reports that using a mobile phone to make direct payments could become the norm in Europe following cooperation announced between the GSM Association (GSMA), which brings together the world’s major mobile operators, and the European Payment Council (EPC), the body representing the EU banking sector.

The first widespread deployment of the new payment system is expected by late 2008 or the beginning of 2009, David Pringle, a spokesperson for the GSMA, told EurActiv.

This will be supported by the major hand set makers Nokia, Samsung or Motorola, and the payment card associations -particularly Visa and MasterCard - which will provide the updated applications for the telephone SIM cards and will process the payments, according to GSMA.