Future seen for digital wallets

NEW ORLEANS -- Cash, coins and credit cards are so Twentieth Century.

At least, that's the opinion of the electronics manufacturers, phone companies, banks and credit card issuers that expect cellphones to be the main way consumers pay for purchases in the not-so-distant future.

The trouble is, that vision-of-tomorrow is somewhat blurry, as evidenced at the U.S. cellphone industry trade show held this week in New Orleans. There are a lot of ideas, but little agreement.

The stakes, however, are high.

"Eighty-five percent of the world's transactions are still made with cash and checks. We have a wonderful opportunity to convert those," said Gary Flood, MasterCard's president of global products and solutions, in a keynote speech at the show.

One concept that gets a lot of attention is the "digital wallet" -- a virtual repository for our credit card numbers, receipts, coupons. It's not much different from a PayPal account, which can be linked to different cards. A lot of companies see the wallet as the key to influence in the world of mobile payments, especially if it sits on a cellphone, not just on a PC. Google introduced its Wallet last year. It's available on a few phones that can be tapped against certain payment terminals to complete a payment.