( CNN ) -- You already have your next credit card . It 's sitting in your front pocket . People have possessed the ability to spend and send money with their smartphones for years , but mobile payments have yet to take off in a big way . Plastic and cash are still the preferred modes of buying stuff -- by a long shot . But four recent events suggest that mobile payments are about to take off in a big way . 1 . This week , investors pumped $ 150 million into Square , the mobile-payments company that lets people turn their smartphones into virtual cash registers . The investment values the company at $ 6 billion . 2 . Last week , eBay opted to spin off payments service PayPal . A big part of the reason : PayPal has been held back by its parent company , and the move is expected to free PayPal to increase its mobile payments presence . 3 . Facebook is experimenting with a one-touch payments system , and this week TechCrunch reported that Facebook is about to release a peer-to-peer money transfer feature in its Messenger app . 4 . And then there 's the big kahuna : Apple Pay . Set to be released later this month , Apple Pay will let iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users make payments at participating retailers simply by using their phones ' fingerprint scanner then holding the phone up to a scanner . Retailers who have already signed up include Bloomingdale 's , Macy 's , McDonald 's , Staples , Walgreens and Whole Foods Market . More than 70 % of U.S. adults have smartphones , and more than one in five have already used a `` mobile wallet '' in the past 90 days , according to Mary Monahan , executive vice president and research director at Javelin Strategy . More than half of mobile purchasers bought physical goods with their phones . The trend lines are clear . And as more apps and smartphones push mobile payments , consumers will become increasingly willing to ditch plastic for their phones . `` Recent history would dictate that pretty much anything that has required a physical world medium for delivery -- CDs , film cameras , the Encyclopedia Britannica -- have been all but replaced by a digital equivalent , '' said Nick Holland , a senior analyst at Javelin Strategy . What 's not clear is which form of mobile payments will become dominant . Square , for instance , is hedging its bets by selling a credit card reader and a mobile app that lets you pay without taking your card out of your wallet . Although the company was a mobile-payments innovator , products like Apple 's could make its most visible product , a reader for credit cards , obsolete . `` This wo n't happen for many years , but in a new world where Apple Pay is seen as the shiniest new thing -- where the plastic cards have the ability to be physically removed from the payment process -- Square has lost quite a lot of its sheen , '' Holland said . Monahan said she believes mobile users up to age 45 will make the transition to mobile payments relatively seamlessly . As to the others , she expects the transition to be slower , but to eventually come the same way other digital adoptions have -- with a nudge from the younger folks around them . `` Most likely , it will be the sons and daughters who sweet talk and cajole the parents ... . '' she said. `` Dad -- I need the tuition check now , please . Just send it to me using mobile P2P . '' `` That 's how teens got parents to text -- just so parents could talk to their teens on the phone , they learned in self-defense . Now it 's the next step . ''
Experts say mobile-phone payments may be here to stay . Leader Square is now valued at $ 6 billion . Apple made a big splash with planned Apple Pay system . Partners with Apple include Bloomingdale 's , McDonald 's , Whole Foods .