NEW ORLEANS — “The big story is [banks] are pushing toward payments,” said Brent Samuels, senior manager at payments consultancy First Annapolis, during a panel at the Mobile Banking & Emerging Applications Summit held this week. “P2P payments are on the rise.”

That rising trend was most clearly highlighted when one of the conference’s hosts casually mentioned that “a lot” of bank respondents to a pre-conference survey said they are considering deploying P2P services within the next year. Couple that survey results with the recent emergence of clearXchange, a joint P2P venture from Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., and it becomes evident that banks are finally getting on board with P2P and are even forming alliances to give PayPal a run for its money.

Indeed, a panel devoted to discussing the evolution of P2P with mobile gave the clearXchange endeavor mad props, heralding their excitement over the news for two reasons: the launch shows banks 1) are leading a strategy; and 2) are flexing their muscles in order to own some of the P2P space.

Despite the industry’s positive reaction to the launch, the effort was well overdue, according to one panelist. Emmett Higdon, principal at Prizm Strategy, told attendees his first reaction to the clearXchange announcement was: “it’s about time banks got launching this.”

Though the launch is late to the P2P party already well-attended by startups and PayPal, clearXchange underscores banks’ growing realization that deploying P2P services is essential to their businesses.

When asked about P2P’s role at banks within the next year, the panelist vote was unanimous: banks will have the technology deployed within the next 12 months. SVP and Head of North American Money Movement at TD Bank Spencer Jones, for one, said next year’s conversation will start to shift from “will banks deploy P2P services” to focusing on how to drive P2P transactions.

To date, one trend banks should already take note of is how consumers have been using P2P services. In short, the panelists concurred that customers will use the P2P services to fit their needs, not necessarily what banks intend the service to do.

“Usage tends to reflect check replacement rather than ‘I forgot my wallet at lunch,’” said Neil Platt, SVP of CashEdge, which offers banks a P2P service. “It is easier to see checks eliminated, rather than cash.”

Michael Garelik, a financial services innovation & mobile and alternative payments specialist, echoed these sentiments. “People will use the [P2P service] in the way they want to use it no matter what you say,” said Garelik, who was closely involved in Citibank’s trial with Obopay’s mobile payment service not long ago.

Jones, meanwhile, also saw a similar customer P2P usage pattern while working at BofA.

“It came down to what the customer is trying to do and what they need to accomplish,” said Jones. “[Consumers] didn’t split checks, but we did see the evolution of traditional lines of business evolve.”

In a separate session, Patrice Peyret, chief executive of Plastyc Inc, pointed to how P2P may not have a significant role in the underbanked segment based on his company’s experience. Though Plastyc, which specializes in the underbanked market, offers users a free P2P service, Peyret says few use the feature. He credits limited usage to how the demographic “rarely” owes other people money, and if they do, the amounts are nominal.