The world has already entered the renaissance of mobility, with social networking strengthening its pillars. The flourishing era of smartphones and tablets has given its many segments the backing it needs to establish a new industry and make billions of dollars from products and services associated to mobile devices. One of the lucky sectors to reach swift success is mobile payments. With experts projecting this entity to be worth more than $200 billion in the next 2-3 years, companies are budding everywhere as the pollen of consumer and investor interest spreads.  Just last week, PageOnce further iterated its position for mobile payments domination with a much-anticipated daily finance services for mobile phones.

Still in the interest of trends within mobile payments, Parks Associates published a report comparing prospects for mobile payment technologies.  NFC emerged as the future of the industry, and convenience will most likely be the key to capturing the market. Director of Mobile Research at Parks, Harry Wang, noted that “the convenience of e-wallet solutions, specifically for eliminating the need to carry multiple or any credit cards, is driving the majority of consumer interest.”

Various companies have updated their portfolio over the last few days to keep up with the heated competition.

SCVNGR

Targeting T-Mobile nationwide 4G network users, SCVNGR has deployed new LevelUp mobile payments solution to bring a seamless pay-by-phone system onto the table. The idea is that consumers can easily download free app on their Android phones, link to their credit or debit cards, and pay for purchases in participating merchants. A virtual receipt is also issued to the customer, along with rewards points for every visit.

Chief Ninja at SCVNGR/LevelUp, Seth Priebatsch, is very happy with this initial update and promised that they are brewing exciting things.

“We’re in the process of building something big… really, really big! We’ve mashed together transactions with game mechanics to reward consumers, grow merchants and make transactions fun. With T-Mobile’s help, we’re bringing this new transactional infrastructure nationwide.”

Square

The latest to upgrade their services is Square. Square’s Card Case iOS5 app will now support geofencing and will be integrated with Twitter.  Furthermore, payments will most likely be hands-free—you no longer have to grab you phones and open the app. Once the Square technology senses a customer nearby, it will automatically pull-up information from the account. The moment the customer decides to purchase an item in this local merchant, cashier will just verify information and as soon as they’re cleared, the transaction will then charge customer with the amount of the item automatically.

The Twitter integration will be useful for merchants to monitor their account and see comments made by customers.  Simply put, social enterprise and data analysis will align strategies with market demands.  This hands-free feature has directly assaulted Intuit’s plastic swiper as a mode of payment.  Forbes reported on how Intuit plans to respond to the challenge, agreeing that swipes are sure to disappear but NFC may not be the end solution.

PayPal

World-leader in virtual payments, PayPal will turn on the charm to attract retailers into using mobile apps.  It opened a Manhattan dummy store to demonstrate the use of apps in smartphones. This move will support PayPal’s plans in launching its own mobile wallet next year. But while waiting for 2012, the company will soon introduce PayPal app for Android phones using Near Field Communication of NFC.

Change for consumer behavior

Managing finances through mobility will not in any way replace banks in the future. However, it will alter the course of how people transact business and influence spending habits.  Having virtual money in mobile wallets available even on holidays, weekends and after bank hours–this is something that catches up with the speedy pace of today’s world. Anyone could look at the added benefits from both ends of the spectrum: having funds readily available for emergencies, and veering away from the hassle of paperwork and time-taxing over-the-counter transactions, but the same ease lures people to practice impulse buying and develop poor personal finance management— this is where mobile apps will only continue to create value for consumers.