NFC will fail to gain mass adoption and the debate around it will slowly die in 2013, according to PayPal. It also believes 2013 will be the year that we will truly see disruption in the shopping and payments space.

Writing on the company blog, David Marcus, president, says: "Is tapping a phone on a terminal any easier than swiping a credit card? I don’t think so – it’s not solving a real consumer problem and its not providing additional value to encourage me (or anyone else for that matter) to change my behaviour."

Marcus goes on to say that the payments, loyalty and coupons businesses will merge. "The digital wallet must offer more than another way to pay. It needs to remove complexity from your life, not increase it. For sure, the technology needs to be great, and simple, but then it should get out of your way and let you focus on the things you most want – loyalty points or rewards for example. In 2013 payments will finally merge with loyalty and rewards. These three separate businesses will converge to make it easy for consumers and merchants to automatically leverage appropriate coupons and offers."

Meanwhile, the cash register will go mobile. "In the old retail model, customers browsed in the aisle and paid at the register. This was partly because the registers were hard-wired to phone lines to gain the necessary authorisations. As we move to a world where even the transactions in a shop are transmitted on the back end via the internet, sales associates will be free to roam the stores and help their customers check out and pay from the aisle or even the changing room…and if they don’t have the right size or color in stock, they’ll order it for you on the spot to be delivered direct to your home."

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