For example, in December JPMorgan Chase began piloting its with more than 20 participating merchants, including Home Depot, CVS, The Gap, and Pizzeria Uno.

One mobile application that's been having difficulties catching on is contactless payments, where a cell phone with an RFID chip can be swiped across a point of scale terminal in a retail store and money will automatically be deducted from the phone owner's account.

A major problem is that many cell phone owners don't even know they have the capability; the other problem is retail stores don't know whether their scanners support the app or not, Schmidt said. "So a person will stand there tapping their phone on the reader, and the cashier will ask what they're doing," he said.

The other problem is there are no standards for how to process contactless payment information, which has lead to concerns by banks and others as to whether the transactions can be fully secured.

One of the fast growing mobile applications is peer-to-peer, or P2P, payments, which allows consumers to pay for goods over the Web using their phone.