Mobile money transactions will require four years to become widely accepted by consumers globally, according to a KPMG report.

KPMG conducted a survey of nearly 1,000 executives from the financial services, technology, telecommunications and retail sector and found that 83 per cent expected mobile payments to be mainstream within four years.

However, KPMG itself is of the opinion that the mobile money transactions will grow at a faster pace than what the respondents anticipate.

"We believe that exploding smartphone growth and myriad opportunities will grow mobile payments at a much faster rate than our respondents anticipate," KPMG Global Chair of the Technology, Communication and Entertainment, Gary Matuszak said.

"A wide variety of payments is ready for adoption, as several key players already provide or are rolling out mobile payments, and interest among consumers in utilising mobile payments is growing in line with the industry's readiness to deploy them," he added.

The mobile money transactions are estimated to reach 350 billion USD by 2015, and the number of mobile users in the country is expected to touch 900 million from the current 500 million. Industry experts believe that there would be 150 million smartphone users by 2015.

Nearly 72 per cent of the executives said mobile payments will be reasonably important in the future, while 58 per cent said they have a mobile payments strategy in place.

"There is a consensus on the significant value of this opportunity among executives across geographies and industries, but the type and size of opportunity varies between the developed and developing countries, depending on the depth and reach of the financial infrastructure in place," Matuszak said. .