Mobile payments and the story of NFC to date dominated the 2012 FStech/Retail Systems Payments Technology Conference. The event, a mixture of presentations and panel sessions involving the likes of Barclays, Visa Europe, Monitise and RIM, took place last week at the IoD Hub in London.

A full review will appear in the November/December edition of FStech (available in early December), but for the meantime here are some of the standout comments from the day:

Alex Kwiatkowski, research manager EMEA, IDC Financial Insights: “M-payments is not an ecosystem as is often said, it's an egosystem, with so many players jostling for attention.”

Richard Johnson, group strategy, Monitise: “Mobile payments is incredibly exciting as there is lots up for grabs and no definite outcome. And I’m sorry to disappoint an earlier speaker, but there will not be one wallet to rule them all!”

Huw Thomas, managing director, PMC: “Mobile operators are taking control here. I’m not sure the banks are following suit. We need more collaboration and engagement from the banks to open things up.”

Ron Delnevo, managing director, Bank Machine: “Contactless is one of the biggest busts in history. It's had almost no impact on the payments landscape. That surprises me. Even I thought it would have a small impact, but nothing.”

Ron Delnevo: “I keep hearing that cash is dead. But it’s more popular than ever. I’d sue someone but I can’t find anyone to sue.”

Derek White, chief customer experience officer, Barclays: “When we launched Pingit our dream was that it would grow into something like iTunes, for instance, monthly releases, monitoring Twitter and customer feedback…There are many disruptive players and influences out there. The only way to survive is to create layered products as we have done and as the industry did 40 years ago with cards.”

Kristian Thure Sorenson, Mobey Forum board member: “We’re still at the hype stage. For each Google Wallet there are eight articles on Google Wallets!”

Paul Rodgers, chairman, Vendorcom: “99.9 per cent of the general public don’t know what a digital wallet is. They also think that the contactless logo is a hearing loop sign. A lot needs to be done in terms of education and communication.”

Further information on the conference at: http://www.fstech.co.uk/payments

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