ISIS maintains that NFC is the most secure technology for modernizing payments.

Nonetheless, while NFC technology is widely used in South Korea and Japan for transit and for retail purchases, it is only starting to catch on in Europe and North America.

Part of the reason for the slow start is that just 2% of all merchants worldwide have installed terminals or software that can read NFC transmissions, according to Aite Group.

Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner, said that Apple didn't miss the boat by not installing NFC chips in the iPhone 5.

She noted that recent partnership agreements by and by for use of in-store mobile payment systems that don't use NFC technology "prove that [non-NFC] mobile payments can be as, or even more convenient for consumers than those with NFC."