With many retailers considering upgrades of their point-of-sale software to accept mobile payments, a new survey from Catapult Marketing suggests consumers aren't looking to use these new payment tools anytime soon.

Nearly half of respondents (41 percent) said they were completely disinterested in using mobile payment tools, while 17 percent were "not very interested." Conversely, only 15 percent were very interested and 10 percent were somewhat interested. Meanwhile, 17 percent were neutral on the use of these payment platforms.

The key to establishing mobile devices as viable payment tools lies in privacy and security.

"Privacy and security concerns must be addressed upfront," Catapult Marketing explains. "And theft concerns are real and must be addressed, for example, by using double sign-on, or fingerprint, retina or voice activation. While there may be early adopters of mobile wallets, nothing broad-based is likely until some of these barriers are addressed."

Some technology professionals think that by 2020, mobile payments will become mainstream like credit cards and cash, according to a separate report from PEW Research.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, May 7th, 2012 at 11:36 am .