Mobile money transfer and NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions are predicted to account for 50 per cent of the global mobile payment market by 2013.

Industry analyst Juniper Research said this week that while the mobile payments market is currently dominated by purchases of digital content such as ringtones, music and games, it will in future be driven by users transferring money and using NFC to make purchases.

The analyst said this shift will drive the overall mobile payments market to grow by a factor of ten between now and 2013.

Juniper analyst Howard Wilcox said, “We see significant opportunities for new services making it easier for the ‘underbanked’ population and migrant workers to make remittances, using their mobile phones as mobile wallets: the services already in operation are seeing rapid growth.”

NFC, or contactless payment, is set to enable people to use their mobile phones to pay for small value items such as refreshments and magazines.

Earlier this month, Juniper revealed that more than 100 million mobile phone users worldwide are predicted to use their handset to make international money transfers within five years.

The top three regions identified for growth in this area – Western Europe, North America and Africa & the Middle East – are forecast to represent over 75 per cent of the global international mobile money transfer gross transaction value by 2013.

As a result of this growth, the analyst predicts a $5bn opportunity (by 2013) for mobile money transfer service providers and vendors, for both national services between mobile users in a single country and internationally.