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Ketharaman I sense yours is a rhetorical question, because you're too smart to not know the answer! But for everyone else's benefit I'll offer an answer... retails get huge scope reduction by using a payments solution in the cloud especially if it is a P2PE validated solution. But they are never completely out of scope of PCI DSS because (for example) the card number is still embossed on the card. In this sense I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of the first commentor - I'm sure the issuers could secure the data at source.

Spare a thought for the small merchants who pay up to 50 pence per transaction in processing fees, and someone might come in just to buy a newspaper in the mornings. 

I find the picture at the bottom of this article hopelessly inadequate, and at the same time it epitomises the mobile-challenge: mobile payments are supposed to avoid the need to take out your credit card, and you should be able to make mobile payments even when you're not sat next to your PC! (all of which are shown in the picture). 

Bumper???  Does a 1.2% increase qualify as bumper? Granted an increase in this economic climate is noteworthy, but I wouldn't use that adjective.

Hi Andy, great write-up but what is the business case for the retailers? I agree that they have the capability to "add value to mobile technology, through loyalty schemes, vouchers, ‘favourites’, preferential checkouts for mobile users" but clearly they don't have sufficient motivation.

loyalty schemes / vouchers: you're suggesting that the retailer should fund the mobile technolgoy by offering customers extra incentives. I don't see why a retailer would prefer to have their customer pay with a mobile over another means

'favourites' works only if the retailer provides the app (as is the case with Pizza Express) but I can't see this scaling - will consumers really install a new app for each retailer they shop at? Won't they get annoyed that each app is slightly different?

preferential checkouts: that's a good one. But we already have self-checkout, express check-out, and the normal lanes - which one should be duplicated for mobile (surely not all 3)?  But if you don't do it for all of them your customer would still have to make sure he has his cards at all times.

About network coverage: I'd expect that that mobile payments (unless it's NFC) would require the retailer to provide WIFI

My first thoughts were that the brick wall background was very dull, and not particularly distincitve of Barcelona. Then it struck me: it was intentional - so as not to detract from the dazzling appeal of the mobile wallet

Why sue Home Depot and not PayPal? Isn't it PayPal's POS technology which PayOne claims to have the patent on?

Jan-Olof, the convenience is that sun-bronzed Californians (this works only in the US) can roam the beaches wearing next-to-nothing, not carrying wallets, and still buy their frapachinos by remembering their own cell phone numbers.  Now what was it again... 555-? err, um...

In the same way that there's no security on contactless transactions, there is no security on cash. If I leave my wallet lying around in order for someone to have a chance of taking one of my cards, I'm sure they would take any cash I have in my wallet too. There are limits on what can be spent - a per-transaction limit (in the UK it's £20) and also a limit on the number of consecutive contactless transactions the card will allow before it forces fall-forward (I think it's typically 5) but most consumers would never be forced to fall-forward because they use their cards for both contactless and contact- payments (which resets that counter).

my personal bugbear is that none of the banks or credit card companies I use let me add notes to my online statements.  I like to tick off amounts that I've checked, for example work-related expenses that I've remembered to claim back from my employer.  So I have to download them and paste into an Excel spreadsheet which is editable.