Mike Love, the chief technology officer for Mozido, added that businesses building mobile wallet systems should not "presume that consumer adoption is going to happen." Mozido builds white-label mobile wallet systems for banks and other businesses and has a number of mobile commerce pilots under way.

A representative for MCX, Dodd Roberts, added that "consumers may not know that their experience engaging in commerce could be so much better than it is now." He recalled that Henry Ford remarked that Americans didn't know they would want an automobile before it was introduced, and when asked what they wanted would have replied: a faster horse.

Tayloe Stansbury, chief technology officer for Intuit, said small merchants have a clear need for mobile technology, since 55% of them aren't enabled to accept credit card or e-card payments. Intuit processes 1 billion invoices a year through the use of checks from small retailers and businesses, "which is very inefficient," and believes small firms should move to electronic systems, possibly through mobile wallet.

The evolution of Passbook, an application in Apple's iOS 6 that is available in iPhone, has given some mobile commerce advocates hope that Americans will slowly begin to use their smartphones to carry retailers' coupons and payment cards digitally. They could then move up to storing credit cards on their phones.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at or subscribe to . His email address is .