(CNN) — These days, it seems that most Americans carry three things in their pockets or purses at all times: keys, a wallet and a phone.
A survey says 15 percent of phone users in Japan use their phones to make payments.
But, in the not-too-distant future, you may be able to leave the wallet and the keys behind.
The mobile phone is staging a coup.
Some analysts say that within five years, mobile phones in the United States will be able to make electronic payments, open doors, access subways, clip coupons and possibly act as another form of identification.
These futuristic uses for phones are becoming reality in countries like South Korea and Japan, which typically are ahead of the United States when it comes to mobile technology.
A 963-person survey by Forrester Research, for instance, found that 15 percent of Japanese mobile phone users make payments and purchase products in stores with their phones.
The ideas have been tried in the United States too, but with less success.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, banks and cell phone makers started conducting trials with U.S. customers. Limited groups of people were given the ability to scan their phones to make payments, enter stadiums and access public transit.
Those phone-forward guinea pigs didn’t like the new functionalities as well as expected, and the ideas never took off on a commercial scale, said Ed Kountz, a senior analyst at Forrester.
But Kountz said there’s now resurgent interest in merging phones with wallets and keys. In 2009, people are more dependent on their phones than they used to be.
“I think it is different this time around,” said Kountz, who believes that phones in the United States will be used to make mobile payments within five years.
“The overall utility of cell phones has expanded, and more consumers are using the data aspects of cell phones,” he said.
what i suggest is the mobile wallet technology has to link with banking and finace industry
