Call it payment technology fatigue. Or call it a vision of the future in many markets.

Retail banks and merchants in South Africa are likely to be slow to adopt NFC mobile payment technology due to the high installation costs for terminals and infrastructure on top of recently shouldered EMV costs.

In a report at Gadget, Tim Walter of Nashua Mobile said there was "little appetite" among businesses to gear up for a new payment technology just as the country's rollout of EMV is reaching its final stages.

South African banks are reportedly trialing NFC, the report said. But the country has not yet reached the critical mass in NFC-compatible phones to create momentum for NFC payments, nor has it developed a "compelling" commercial model. 

The report said that with only 30 million NFC handsets sold worldwide in 2011, the segment still represents a tiny fraction of the overall mobile market. Even with predicted exponential growth, NFC could be two to three years away from mainstream adoption.

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