NEW YORK - Mobile wallets. We??ve participated in workshops about this topic for at least six years at NACStech. We??ve read news articles and watched the rest of the world advance this technology while leaving the U.S. in the dust. So what??s the hold up? The answer is simple: money, reports the New York Times.

"It all comes down to who gets paid and who makes money," Drew Sievers, chief executive of mFoundry, which makes mobile payment software for merchants and banks, told the newspaper. "You have banks competing with carriers competing with Apple and Google, and it??s pretty much a goat rodeo until someone sorts it out."

Credit market dominators Visa and MasterCard and the banks that issue credit cards want to keep their position on top and continue collecting fees from merchants. However, their facing competition from companies like PayPal, Apple and Google, which also want a piece of the action. Then there are the mobile carriers that want to collect fees through their control over the actual mobile devices.

"In the middle ?" and perhaps playing a deciding role ?" are the retailers. They have to install terminals that accept mobile payments," writes the newspaper.

Agreeing on financial terms, so far, has been tricky. Everyone wants to make sure they get paid, and Visa and MasterCard don??t want to give up their interchange fees charged to merchants for each transaction.

Frustration with Visa and MasterCard and the banks is likely what led to the creation of mobile wallet joint venture by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Discover called Isis, which is expected to launch in 2012. "Barclaycard, already a major player in Britain, will be the first issuer of the group??s in-phone credit card and sees it as an opportunity to expand in the United States," writes the newspaper.

Getting retailers on board with mobile payment technology, however, is the key to widespread adoption, notes the newspaper, because most merchants will have to replace their current card terminals.

Gwenn Bézard, research director at the Aite Group, told the newspaper that many large retailers, including McDonald??s and CVS, already have terminals that can accept mobile payments and could begin taking part when the technology becomes available. He also said that 80 percent of consumer transactions "occur at the top 200 merchants," notes the newspaper.