With mobile banking solutions seeing increased adoption and the presence of mobile devices permeating virtually every facet of contemporary society, Frost & Sullivan have predicted that four topics will dominate the financial services market in 2013: contactless payments, commercial mobile payment offerings, cloud-based solutions and data analytics.

In a release from Frost & Sullivan, the 2013 predictions come as a result of Europe’s increased acceptance of m-banking services, an emerging adoption of m-payments, and long-term growth opportunities in international m-remittances.

Also crucial to Frost & Sullivan’s predictions is the growth of contactless cards in Europe — a compound annual growth rate of 28.7% in 2011-2017. Part and parcel to this growth is the increasing presence of NFC technology on smartphones with an estimated 38% of devices shipped with the tech in Europe by 2018.

Bolstering the financial services sector will be the convenience that mobile banking offers. Frost & Sullivan posit that contactless payments be much simpler and effortless and will better follow natural customer behavior, generating a new payment experience.

A number of commercial mobile payment offerings are scheduled for launch in 2013 with increased adoption expected in 2014-2015. Additionally, the total value of transactions made using NFC mobile payments is expected to reach 42.3% in 2015 and 49.6% by 2018.

Frost & Sullivan posits that the commitment of market participants to work together will yield positive results in the further development of NFC.

Frost & Sullivan believe that cloud computing will remain a cost-effective factor in the expansion of NFC-based solutions in the m-payments space. Cloud-based solutions use internet and server storage for payment purposes allowing small and medium enterprises to better reach their spending objectives.

According to the Frost & Sullivan report, social media will play an integral role for financial institutions in understanding their customer base. Social media reduces the total cost of data computing and provides a means to identify new customer groups, characterize their purchasing patterns and more effectively tailor services to their specific needs.

Frost & Sullivan’s full presentation on ICT Europe and their Financial Services Predictions for 2013 is available here.