Gartner reduced its forecast for NFC mobile payments volume for 2016 by 40% to $22bn. Gartner attributed the revision to slower-than-expected uptake of NFC by consumers and merchants as well as the limited success of the Google Wallet and Isis Mobile Wallet initiatives.
Gartner noted that it expects NFC to account for 5% of total mobile-payments volume in 2017, up from 2% in 2013. Gartner forecasts that the global installed base of NFC-enabled phones will grow from 170mn in 2012 (3% of total handsets) to 2.1bn (32% of handsets) by 2017.
In India, >75% of payments are done by cash. Less than 3% is by credit and debit cards (owing to penetration being held back by high cost POS machines). In this cash dominated landscape, utility bill payment is a significantly large opportunity, with 30bn payments worth US$160bn in FY12, according to RBI
Payment for utilities such as power, water, telephone, etc is largely done via cash payments. This entails the utility setting up offices to accept cash, staffing, incurring the cost of cash handling, reconciliation issues etc. all of which are pain points.
Separately, MasterCard and Visa provided intra-quarter volume updates that also reflected improving payment trends. Through May, Mastercard reported US volume growth of 7% yoy, with both debit and credit improving and reflecting an acceleration from the 4% growth reported in the March-quarter. Earlier in the week, Visa reported US volume growth of 12% in May, with credit volumes growing 11% and debit volumes 12%.