Mobile payments are the future

Credit cards and cash are still king, but it won't be long before mobile payments begin to take off. In fact, this form of completing transactions is the future, and there is really no ceiling, according to Business Insider.

In the past five years, mobile transactions have experienced 118 percent annual growth in the U.S., with Africa and Asia-Pacific seeing much stronger growth.

The main reason electronic payment systems could surge in popularity is the fact that the majority of Americans have a smartphone - devices that make it much easier for mobile payment adoption to take place.

Phillip Yen, group head of emerging payments for MasterCard, said he believes mobile payments are the future but it will take some time, as the implementation of NFC technology could be lengthy - much like the upgrade from credit cards with magnetic strips to chip and pin.

"In almost all of the countries that went down that path, it took about 10 years from planning to ubiquitous usage," Yen told Mobile World Live. "That's because merchants needed to make IT changes and think through how they wanted to adopt it."