by: Bobby Emamian

You may have swiped your phone recently to make an in-store payment. Yet that act was hardly more convenient than swiping a credit card, right?

That’s probably why you’re seeing only 3 percent to 7 percent of consumers using their phones for in-store purchases. But that’s about to change.

By 2017, mobile payments are expected to reach $90 billion in the United States alone, a significant bump from 2012’s $12.8 billion total. Of that $90 billion, $41 billion will come from mobile proximity payments — or, to put it bluntly, the act of waving your mobile device — where you once swiped a credit card.

Predictions aside, consumers are still apprehensive about using mobile payments. They’re convinced that losing their phones would mean simultaneously losing wallets. Plus, there’s all that sordid business about security.

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