NFC has already appeared in initiatives like the Oyster card, which allows contactless payments to be made on public transport networks in London.
But Neil Munroe, spokesman for Equifax, predicts that adding the wireless communications technology to smartphones could eventually see them take over from cards.
He does not expect the trend to occur quickly - instead, he predicts that it will take place gradually as the current generation of young people grow up using the technology.
Mr Munroe does, however, anticipate that "the leading-edge technology will be around the smartphone".
He adds: "The key thing, I suppose, that everyone is trying to get to is one piece of equipment which does everything."
By incorporating the functionality of cards into smartphone handsets, he suggests that this ambition could be realised in part by reducing the number of different things people have to carry with them at any given time.
