The latest piece of tech to become the big thing in the smartphone space, albeit not being new technology as it’s been around for some considerable time but was slow to be taken up by smartphone makers, is of course Near Field Communication (NFC) otherwise known as mobile payment, and a new study has now predicted how successful revenue wise NFC will be in future.

The new study was performed by Juniper Research and they predicts that the total value of mobile payments for physical an digital items along with NFC transactions and money transfers will hit a staggering $670 billion by the year 2015 which is up from $240 billion this year.

Juniper Research’s forecasts apparently represent the gross merchandise value of all purchased, or the money being transferred, and also show that all segments will show a two times, or three times growth over the next 5 years.

Apparently this vast growth will be produced by the quick uptake of NFC contact-less payments, physical goods purchasing, mobile ticketing, and money transfers as mobile phone users in developed and developing countries use they mobile handset for everyday transactions more frequently.

David Snow, senior analyst says, “Our analysis shows that emerging segments such as physical goods payments, NFC and money transfers will fuel market growth by a factor of 2.7 times by 2015. Digital goods is the largest segment and, although forecast to more than double, it is not growing as quickly as some of the newer segments.”

Within the next eighteen months there are roughly twenty countries expected to launch NFC services, which should see transactions getting near the $50 billion mark globally by the year 2014. The need for financial access in developing countries is such that mobile money user activity will double and drive values accordingly by the year 2013.

Other figures gleaned from the report includes the top three regions for mobile payment, North America, Western Europe and Far East & China, will collectively stand for 75 percent of the worldwide mobile payment gross transaction value by the year 2015, and by the same year digital goods payments will account for roughly 40 percent of the market.

The Juniper Research study delivers the “big picture” when it comes to mobile payments and provides forecasts for the main market segments of contact-less NFC, domestic and international money transfer, digital and physical goods purchases, and remittances, and further details of the ‘Mobile Payments Strategies: Opportunities & Markets 2011-2015 study can be found here.