New data from Javelin Strategy and Research shows the amount of consumers who carried credit and debit cards shrank last year, and the number of those who had their own prepaid card accounts expanded, according to a report from Bloomberg News. Last year, the number of people who had a credit card slipped to 67 percent of consumers from 74 percent in 2010, and debit cardholders fell to 66 percent from 78 percent.

The kind of "mobile wallet" transaction that many within the smartphone and credit card industries have predicted as becoming popular within the next few years might arrive sooner than some expected, according to a report from Daily Finance. Currently, some 10,000 credit card transactions are processed every second and they add up to a total value of more than $2.5 trillion every year.

Credit risk professionals believe that consumers' repayment habits will continue to get better over the next six months, and therefore predict that lenders will keep opening new lines of credit to consumers of all stripes, according to the latest quarterly survey from the credit scoring bureau FICO. Lenders predict fewer instances of delinquency across most types of consumer credit, including mortgages, small business loans, car loans and credit cards. Only student loans are expected to tick upwards during this time.

Late last year, Google unveiled its mobile purchasing platform, Wallet, to a considerable amount of fanfare, and perhaps with good reason, according to a report from Bank Systems and Technology. The Web giant's offering was the first major mobile wallet system to be launched in the U.S., and came with agreements with some of the world's largest payment processors, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.