[mintone]

In a fantastical world yes. Google wallet and NFC require one thing that means they can't be readily adopted as the main method of payment - power, and more specifically, personal power. In the real world, relying on a system that requires such a fragile device to be a) powered up and b) functioning, is a Bad Idea. Notes can be washed, ripped and screwed up and still act as legal tender, a bank card is resilient to most conditions and has 2 levels of redundancy beyond the chip (magstripe and raised lettering - the problem with any major payment method is that it has to have failsafes. Imagine the NE (and specifically NYC) had another blackout - how do people think that would go if all methods of payment had to be powered? Even last time, you could still use cards with the traditional click clunk machines.

Chip and pin (and paywave, a nfc like solution) are great but they require failsafes to work consistently.