A lot has happened in 2011 on the mobile payment arena, all except large live roll-outs and customer adoption..and 2012 will start on the same route with new initiatives, more mergers and new trials/pilots. Here are a few expectations for next year;

– Pilots will be commercially launched and gain customer adoption.

– Google Wallet will go Europe for piloting (UK first?), Square will not.

– Person-to-person payments will get most transactions followed by POS payments.

– An open (and needed) mobile payment standard will make its entrance on the world market.

– NFC will come as standard feature in high-end smart phones (but still few services/places to use it). Ticketing and swiping for loyalty points/offers high potential services to pave way for payment.

– The discussion on NFC secure element and where to store sensitive information will continue to hinder live and large scale roll-outs. A new scheme will be proposed to solve the lockup.

– ..and iPhone 5 will not have NFC..