The last few weeks are proving to be a defining period for this type of transaction.

Over the last few weeks, the combination of the groundbreaking mobile payments announcements made from Money2020 in Las Vegas and from the GSMA’s NFC & Mobile Money Summit in New York have allowed a much clearer vision of the future of this technology to be formed.

The leaders of the industry giants are now revealing the next steps that their companies will take.

This has given the world the opportunity to see a much clearer vision of the future of mobile payments technology, with increasingly pervasive tech as well as a considerable cooperation from the industry. As was pointed out by the co-founder and CEO of Ensygnia (a visual pay technology), Richard H Harris, m-commerce venders and retailers alike will now be working to give consumers a better shopping experience overall.

This includes the development of mobile payments for everything from smartphones to wearable gadgets.

It also involves the creation of new ways for people to order their products and services and to employ mobile payments through the establishment of identity and by “tokenizing the things we use for identity,” said Harris.

The Visa global head of digital for developed markets, Sam Shrauger, explained that he sees the tech within the retail environment becoming more omnipresent. He stated that by being able to work together, it will become possible to establish a “strong ecosystem” that will be both secure and safe because it gives consumers the opportunity to – for instance – walk into a restaurant and have their meal already prepared and sitting on the table for them. He explained that mobile payments and commerce are “all about taking friction out of every aspect of the shopping, buying, paying, post-transaction experience.”

The Groupon owned Breadcrumb restaurant point of sale system founder, Seth Harris, agreed with Shrauger’s statement that cooperation of this nature will broaden, as companies are well aware of how difficult it is to progress in this way when they are attempting to do so on their own. “I think we’re going to see a lot more cooperation among a lot of the big companies than people really realise. It’s only through us all working together that I think we’re going to get there fast.”

PayPal’s vice president of global solutions management, Carey Kolaja, pointed out that there has already been notable progress in mobile payments and loyalty systems over the last year and a half; that more distance has been travelled in that time than it has in the last decade.

Mobile commerce expected to enhance the holiday season

Mobile commerce is expected to play a major role in the upcoming holiday season. Last year, consumers around the world made use of their smartphones and tablets to purchase gifts during the auspicious season. This lead to a spike in retail sales and helped prove the promise of mobile commerce to companies that had been on the fence concerning their engagement with mobile consumers in the past. In countries like Australia, mobile commerce may help make the upcoming holiday season one of the most profitable for retailers.

Consumers with little time to shop favor mobile commerce

Consumers are beginning to favor mobile commerce for a wide range of reasons. Many praise the convenience associated with mobile commerce platforms. Others favor these platforms because they have little personal time to go shopping for products. Through a smartphone and tablet, these people can shop online and make purchases at their leisure. While the mobile commerce field has been plagued with security issues over the past few years, these issues have not yet become enough to dissuade consumers from participating in this field.

Mobile traffic is on the rise

In a recent study released by Monetate, a marketing research firm, almost one-third of online traffic to retail sites on Christmas Day came from tablets and smartphones. Mobile traffic is continuing to rise, as well, even beyond the holiday season. IBM Smarter Commerce notes that more than 30% of online traffic to retail sites now comes from mobile devices as of the third quarter of this year.

Retailers begin taking matters into their own hands

In the wake of the 2012 holiday season, many retailers made efforts to make themselves more accommodating to mobile commerce in general. This meant improving their online infrastructure systems in order to better support traffic coming from mobile devices. Many retailers have also opted to develop their own mobile commerce platforms in order to better engage consumers.