The credit/debit card infrastructure is getting a MASSIVE overhaul next year. Like every point-of-sale register and every card will be replaced with completely new technology, the core being the “smart card” technology common in Europe.
This is a rare opportunity to make additional improvements which otherwise have severe chicken-and-egg problems. NFC allows wireless transactions with a “smart device”, just wave or tap it near the reader. The problem is that retailers don’t want to pony up the extra costs for such registers if NFC won’t be used on a grand scale, and customers don’t want to pony up the extra costs for such devices if NFC won’t be available at most retailers. Yes, some Android devices include NFC, and some POS registers support NFC - but it’s so rare to actually get the two together that neither party finds NFC compelling. BUT ... the iPhone holds a special place in the market, a single product which _dominates_ (somewhere around 50%) the smartphone market, AND has an annual update which a _huge_ percentage (and total number!) of users will update to fast. By including NFC in their next iPhone iteration, they instantly make NFC support at POS registers a worthwhile endeavor for retailers, and give other smartphone makers a compelling reason to include NFC as well where a handful of Android phones didn’t.
I dislike “plastic cards”. 1-3, ok, but the total number of cards I have to carry around is annoying when my omnipresent iPhone could, with one tiny chip included and most POS registers supporting, eliminate entirely. Security risks? c’mon, every time a waiter whisks your card off for processing at a restaurant he can photograph both sides and sell the pictures to his shady pals. NFC might not be absolutely secure (nothing ever is), but coupled with the iPhone’s fingerprint reader it’s _way_ better than a cheap plastic card with 19 human-readable digits of total access to your spending limits.
I don't eat that well to have to worry about that and would never permit anyone to handle my card if I had one.
There is a 100% secure method of protecting your finances -- have a near zero balance in every account and no credit lines and a lock on your credit.