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While awareness of NFC mobile payments is fairly strong, only a little more than one in 10 respondents to a recent survey by UK-based market research firm YouGov said it was likely they would start to use mobile wallets or NFC in the next two years.

The latest mobile wallet tracking study from YouGov found that more than a third, or 36%, of a national sampling of about 2,000 UK respondents said they were aware of mobile wallets, and 12% knew about NFC.

The firm also surveyed about 500 “specialist users” of contactless cards and NFC-enabled handsets. Of those that owned NFC phones, 22% were aware of NFC, but only 16% knew their own phones supported the technology. And less than 2% actually used NFC technology, according to YouGov. The firm presented the survey results last month.

YouGov told NFC Times that, overall, of 1,884 respondents who said they did not use mobile wallets or NFC, only about 12% said they believed it was likely they would start using these applications or technology in the next two years.

Of respondents who said they doubted they would get handsets supporting mobile-payment capabilities, about two-thirds, or 68%, said they are concerned about fraud and security of mobile payments. In addition, 52% said they were worried about viruses and malware that could steal account or payment data from their phones. About half also said they are concerned about privacy. Meanwhile, 64% said they are happy with the way they pay now.

John Gilbert, consulting director for YouGov’s technology and telecom unit, reportedly said he thought that mobile payments will not take off until promoters of these services address security concerns.

The survey showed there is some interest in mobile payments, with 21% of NFC phone owners saying they are interested, along with 16% of the overall national respondent group.

Of  those interested, 76% said it was because of convenience of the payment means, and 68% cited speed. But 37% expected incentives from service providers to use their phones to pay and 36% expect loyalty schemes.

“The resistance factor comes primarily from security and apathy,” Gilbert told NFC Times. “However, by inference, the secondary issues of incentives loom large.”

The security concerns were present for contactless cards, as well. The survey found that 28% of the respondents, who have contactless cards, said they don't feel contactless cards are secure enough and so don't use them. That was second-highest response after the 41% who said they just prefer to use chip-and-PIN when making transactions, including those of low value. Those security concerns, found on the latest survey, conducted in May, are up from earlier YouGov surveys of contactless cardholders.

On a more promising note, the survey found that while 72% of what appears to be the national sample said that while they did not use contactless, 58% would consider doing so in the future. But most said they prefer to keep the contactless purchase limit at £20 (US$31), after which they would have to insert their cards into point-of-sale terminals to conduct a chip-and-PIN transaction.