Will smartphones replace cash and credit cards by 2020?

That's the consensus view of more than 1,000 tech experts surveyed by Pew and Elon University. But don't throw your wallet away quite yet

A man buys a vending machine soda using Google Wallet: Paying with your smartphone may become the norm in just eight years time.
(Image credit: YouTube)

By 2020, paying for almost everything with a swipe of your smartphone or iPad "will have gained mainstream acceptance as a method of payment and could largely replace cash and credit cards," says a new study from Elon University and the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The Near Field Communications technology (NFC) that allows you to make mobile payments already exists, and is widely used elsewhere in the world, including in parts of Africa and Asia. Is it only a matter of time before your smartphone eclipses plastic and hard currency as the go-to way to buy things in stores and online?

Sayonara, cash: "Your wallet may soon be a collector's item," says Megan Garber at The Atlantic. Paper currency has served us well for a long time, but "given the explosion of mobile transactions over the past several years, it's hard to disagree with... the general idea that cash and credit cards are, effectively, on their way out." And I say hooray! Going cashless will be liberating, opening up creative new ways of exchanging goods and services.

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