Last week it was announced that PayPal was running an offline mobile payments trial with HomeDepot in a small number of stores. And yesterday at CES eBay and PayPal released very impressive mobile payments revenue numbers:

• PayPal expects $7 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012
• In 2011 PayPal reached $4 billion in mobile payment volume. This dramatically exceeds the original prediction of $1.5 billion
• There are currently 17 million (global) PayPal customers using the system to make mobile payments

These figures enable PayPal to lay claim to being the leading mobile payments platform in North America and perhaps globally. I've previously argued that PayPal's consumer brand is too weak to enable it to be one of the big winners in mobile payments. However enough adoption by merchants and extreme simplicity can overcome what I perceive to be its brand weakness to perhaps a substantial degree. 

In HomeDepot PayPal is testing a system that allows consumers to pay for things with their phone numbers and a pin-code. It doesn't rely on the rollout of near-field communications. Such a system could dramatically speed the adoption of mobile payments. Removing the need to physically swipe the card at a POS terminal makes the transaction more secure than it would otherwise be. 

Comfortable Paying with Smartphone

However most people are ignorant of the benefits of mobile payments and a majority remain concerned about security. A recent Prosper Mobile online survey (n=360) found that 44% of respondents were somewhat or very comfortable with the idea of paying for things with their phones. The other 56% were not. 

Related posts:

• PayPal Brand Weakness Standing in Way of Otherwise Compelling Vision
• Will 2012 Be a 'Breakthrough' Year for Mobile Payments?
• Verizon Stuffs Google Wallet, Starbucks Proclaims Itself the Mobile Payments Leader
• Google's NFC Payments Push Not Just about Payments
• Mobile Predictions: 2012 Edition 
• Carriers Blink, Invite Visa to Be Part of Payments Cabal