WASHINGTON —The mobile wallet wars will be over inside twoyears. That was the chilling prediction offered on Thursday at theBAI Retail Delivery conference by Carl Tsukahara, chief marketing officer at Monitise.

The U.K.-based mobile apps developer recently acquired ClairMail, which had succeeded in staking out a foothold in theU.S. market “but as Monitise we are unknown in the U.S.,” Tsukaharashrugged.

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Tsukahara's message to financial institutions is that the timehas passed for sitting on the sidelines because non-banks – thinkPayPal, Google, Amazon, possibly Apple – are circling and they seemready to attempt to disintermediate financial institutions.

Tsukahara cited third-party research that showed 50% ofconsumers indicated a preference for PayPal as their mobile walletprovider. Thirty-percent (30) liked Google. A similar number likedApple.

“The dangers are real,” said Tsukahara, who explicitly indicatedthat Monitise's vision is to tweak its mobile banking app –presently in some 300 institutions worldwide (including Desert Schools Federal Credit Union, the $3 billion Phoenix institution) – to take on morecharacteristics of a mobile wallet.

“The real battle is for consumer engagement,” said Tsukahara.“The risks for financial institutions are real. But so are theopportunities.

“Don't wait, that's the key. We believe the pecking order in themobile wallet wars will be well defined within 24 months.”

He added, “We need to get financial institutions in that peckingorder.”

Tsukahara, responding to a reporter's question, seemed to shrugoff the significance of announcements at BAI that two leadingdevelopers – mFoundry and Intuit – had schemes for opening theirmobile banking apps to third party-developed content.

“We have opened our apps for years,” said Tsukahara. “In the FarEast you can buy cinema tickets in one app. In the U.K. you can topup prepaid phone plans in app. What we are about is aggregatingexperiences inside the app. That engages the consumer.”