The year 2013 is shaping up to be the year when contactless payments made from smartphones will really take off.Visa and Vodafone are the latest organisations to partner on a contactless payment initiative with the announcement of the Vodafone SmartPass app. SmartPass will be loaded on to smartphones equipped with Near Field Communications (NFC) capability. Once a customer purchases a phone he or she can personalise the app and link it to a credit or debit card, which will then be used to load value on to a virtual Visa prepaid card. The value will be stored on the secure element of the SIM card in the phone, which will hold up to A$1,000. These funds can then be used to make contactless payments at any of the 100,000-plus contactless payment terminals across Australia.ANZ, along with Rev, which provides the prepaid payment processing services, are also involved in the initiative. Initially, Samsung Galaxy S III phones are being used, but more NFC-enabled smartphones are expected to be available in 2013.Vodafone joins Optus as the two telecommunications companies running hardest on NFC smartphone payments in Australia. Optus is already participating in trials of contactless smartphone payments with Westpac and ANZ.Telstra has yet to declare its hand, but, according to a spokesman for the company: "We see value in technology surrounding mobile payments and are currently exploring a range of options in this area."NFC capability is becoming increasingly common in smartphones - Vodafone predicts that 80 per cent of the phones it will sell on a contract in 2013 will feature NFC technology. Apple has thus far resisted NFC for the iPhone, but the banks, payment specialists and telecommunications companies aren't waiting.Vipin Kalra, Visa's country manager, said the company was involved in two parallel models of NFC smartphone payments systems - one involves the user of a prepaid virtual card that is stored on the phone (as in the case of SmartPass), the other securely links a smartphone to a card account, which is the case in the Westpac and ANZ trials.Kalra said that the SmartPass app would allow users to store up to $1,000 of prepaid value on a smartphone, and the stored value could then be automatically topped up as needed.He said there were now over 100,000 contactless payment terminals across Australia.However, this remains just a fraction of the 750,000 Eftpos machines deployed nationally. But, while in the year to the end of June, Australians conducted 2.3 billion Eftpos transactions, worth $135 billion, most of these were for purchases worth $50 and more.For contactless payment to gain the sort of traction that Visa and Vodafone envisage - where people might use a smartphone to pay for coffee or train tickets - Australians will have to get a whole lot more comfortable with small-ticket Eftpos.