A survey conducted by Compass Plus, an international provider of retail banking and electronic payments software to processors and financial institutions, has revealed that though popularity for the mobile channel continues to grow, support for NFC is in decline. The annual survey, which was carried out at the international CARTES Secure Connexions Event 2013 in Paris, took in the views of more than seventy respondents representing financial institutions, mobile operators, payment processors and other industry professions.

The survey saw the mobile channel not only feature as presenting the biggest opportunity for payment and card providers in 2014, but also as one of the biggest challenges in terms of security. Although mobile did not feature in the top five in the 2012 survey, over half of respondents cited it as the biggest opportunity, whilst support for NFC technology decreased by 50%. EMV in the US was highlighted in the top five for a second year running as loyalty, applications and globalization were replaced with security, transport and usability.

Payment fraud continues as a serious issue and respondents feel that card not present fraud has increased as a threat to overtake Internet banking hacking – a third of those surveyed cited card not present fraud as the biggest threat compared to less than a quarter of respondents last year. Internet banking hacking and phishing were joint second with 24%. An interesting difference to the 2012 survey was that after seeing a 7% year-on-year rise in 2012, the threat of card skimming has seen a 15% decrease in 2013.

In 2011, industry expectations for the timings of the mass adoption of both mobile payments and NFC and contactless technology were estimated at between one and three years. In 2013, the predictions are the same, showing initial expectations to be overambitious. By taking into account the results of the 2011 survey, mobile payments and NFC and contactless technology should already have reached mass adoption or should be very close, however over a third of respondents still see mass adoption as more than three years away.

“It is interesting to track the views of industry professionals over time to see how opinions change,” said Maria Nottingham, Executive Vice President of Compass Plus Group. “With the increasing adoption of the mobile device as a banking channel, it is not surprising that the payments and card markets feel that it is an opportunity for growth. However, as with any new technology, the challenge is to offer new innovative services quickly without an adverse customer experience.”