U.K. firm Juniper Research predicts that the NFC retail payments market will exceed $180 billion globally by 2017, a seven-fold increase over 2012. A new report from the company forecasts that North America, Western Europe and the Far East and China will account for 90 percent of the NFC market, resulting from the addition of NFC payment technology to smartphones sold in these markets.

The report said that market acceleration, evidenced by the commitment of more handset manufacturers to the technology and by the release of Google Wallet, made 2011 a "watershed year for NFC payments."

But that's not to say that the development of NFC payments will happen in a seamless fashion. The "watershed" uncovered the fact that large parts of the payment ecosystem are unprepared for the future of NFC. For instance, retailers remain unconvinced of the benefits of NFC versus other payment methods, and are unwilling to invest in the infrastructure to support it.

"This is a critical time for the NFC retail payments market," said report co-author Dr. Windsor Holden. "Despite the significant progress being made today, the full potential of the market can only be fulfilled if all ecosystem players are equally committed and mobile wallet consortia remain in place."

The report also forecast that one-quarter of mobile users in the United States and Western Europe will use NFC payments in-store by 2017, and that a commitment to NFC-based payment projects can help mobile network operators offset their declining average revenue per subscriber.

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