QR Codes vs. NFC: The Battle For Your Mobile Wallet [Infographic]

It’s a little bizarre to think that in a decade from now (or probably before), the traditional wallet will be pretty much extinct. By then, most of us will use our smartphones as our wallets, just like we use our phones for everything else. The term ‘mobile wallet’ makes me think we’ll still hold onto the word ‘wallet,’ even though we won’t own one anymore – kind of like we still refer to ‘dialing a phone number’ even though we don’t actually ‘dial’ it anymore.

With all the advancements with Google Wallet (which has moved away from NFC), you’d think we would be more excited about making the transition to a mobile wallet. For some reason though, that isn’t the case. As a matter of fact, according to an article published a few hours ago on Mobile Entertainment, 64% of people in the United States say they would never use a mobile wallet. In contrast to that is 58% of consumers in the UK who say they would happily use one.

When we look at the technologies behind the concept of mobile wallets, there are two that are leading the pack. Those are QR codes and NFC. This infographic called QR vs. NFC (by Merchant Warehouse) provides an adequate comparison of the two so you can see how they stack up against each other.

The fact that Apple doesn’t offer any products with an NFC chip, and since Google Wallet has moved away from its NFC beginnings, there is still a long way to go in the adoption of NFC. That’s not to say that QR codes are ahead in the race though. In 2012, only 9% of adults in the United States used a QR code, and the overall percentage of smartphone users leveraging this technology has dropped. Only time will tell how all this will play out, and which mobile wallet will impress us enough to dump all our plastic cards.