There was a time when I would get paid on a fortnight Friday, and spend all day Saturday paying bills; I'd fight the traffic, the lines and the dangers of walking around with my hard-earned cash. Then I would spend my Saturday evening reviewing all the receipts I had collected and reworking my budget for the cycle ahead. I absolutely do not miss the old days.

Today, all my bills are sent to me by email. No paper, no postal delays. And instead of joining long lines, I pay my bills online. My advice is to skip the individual utilities and creditors - they do allow you to pay them directly - and consolidate all your bill payments through your commercial bank. No bank? No problem. Log into BillExpress or PayMaster to accomplish the same goal.

Real savings, at least in terms of time, come with paying taxes online. Kudos to Inland Revenue for improvements that reduce wait times, but still, I would rather avoid the office altogether.

With the time (and transportation costs) I have saved, I shop online; something else not possible a few years ago.

In addition to the still popular credit card, Jamaicans can take advantage of online deals by paying with the locally based VCard (a prepaid access card), the ubiquitous PayPal or Google Check-Out. American Express launched yet another option, Serve, expected to be available later this year.

Setting up a PayPal account is easy and it is accepted by thousands of merchants on the Internet. Of course, you will need a credit card to transfer funds into you PayPal account and it could take several days to activate.

All this talk of virtual payments is great, but humans live in the real world. We leave our computers at home and buy goods and services from physical 'brick and mortar' stores. And there has never been a more exciting time to shop! Ditch your purse or wallet, grab your phone and hit the mall!

The US-based Starbucks leveraged their successful loyalty card to pioneer a payment app - a bar code generator that smartphone users could wave over the existing merchant scanner to pay for purchases. Brilliant! Starbucks saw over three million customers in three months. But, the app was limited to Starbucks and you needed a credit card to transfer funds into a pre-registered Starbucks account.

Android devices

Enter NFC. Near Field Communications, in effect, uses a special chip in your phone to turn it into a credit/debit card to pay for goods and services in any store that has the right merchant scanner. Just wave your NFC-enabled phone in front of the specialised terminal and voila! You've paid your bill. No ID, no signature, no PIN, no barcode required. No security either, but we'll get to that later.

Android has already committed to NFC; all Android devices with OS 2.3 or higher have compatible software and handsets with compatible hardware are rolling out after the Nexus S, which is already ready to take advantage of NFC. Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry are rolling out phones this year and rumours are that Apple's new iPhone 5 will be NFC capable too.

Certainly smartphones are better, but true acceptance requires broader access. That said, MasterCard is developing PayPas, a SIM embedded with NFC technology on to the card itself. No smartphone required. With the right SIM, any GSM phone can be a wallet. Brilliant! Knock, knock, Digicel. Hello LIME. Hint, hint.

This technology also has the potential to shift the power of the credit card companies to the telecoms. Think about it. Last year, we were moved by the earthquake in Haiti and we donated millions of dollars to relief efforts not by signing a cheque or pledging by credit card, but by sending text messages.

Credit, minutes, units. Call it whatever you like, but it is becoming a currency in and of itself. If harnessed, Jamaicans can potentially avoid banks and use 'phone credit' combined with NFC to change the way we pay for goods and services. Whoa.

Before we get all carried away, let's explore security. Smartphone theft in Jamaica is so common, police do not investigate (or in some cases even take reports of) the crime. Losing your phone is bad enough - all your contacts, email messages and private pictures in the hands of an unscrupulous person - without the knowledge that they can go on a shopping spree on your dime. As yet, these issues remain unresolved and need to be before wide-scale adoption on NFC takes place.

Of course, I'm not letting that, not so little, detail douse my excitement. Bulging pockets and huge handbags will see their reckoning before the end of the year.

Tech Glitch: Raquel asks, "Does the new Blackberry Protect work?"

Tech Fix: In a word, yes! And quite well. Similar to the Find My iPhone app that iOS users have enjoyed for sometime now, Blackberry Protect is a free downloadable app that allows you to locate your phone on a map, initiate loud ringing or screen displays to help you find it and remotely wipe data. You can also backup and restore data wirelessly.

Got a tech glitch? get your tech fix at: facebook.com/carlettedeleon. Listen to Tech Time on FAME FM each Tuesday morning at 8:15.