LAS VEGAS — In a high-level digital wallets panel at theMoney2020 confab that put on stage senior executives from AmericanExpress, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Google the fisticuffs broke out quickly and involvedonly the latter two.

Don Kingsborough, vice president at PayPal, swung early andoften on Tuesday and he hit on two big themes: NFC, in PayPal'sview, is not anywhere ready for prime time. In that company's view,the letters stand for Not For Consumers.

• ALSO at MONEY2020: Google Wallet Path to Domination
• ALSO at MONEY2020: Mitek CEO Sees Billpay by SmartphoneCamera
• ALSO at MONEY2020: Isis Chatter at Las Vegas Conference
• ALSO at MONEY2020: Bluebird Takes to Vegas Stage

Kingsborough also insisted that digital wallets are not aboutadvertising – a sharp smack at fellow panelist Osama Bedier, theGoogle Wallet guru who on many occasions has referred to the searchgiant as “an advertising company.”

The sub-text is that at his Money2020 keynote on Monday, Bedieralso said – in a clear punch at PayPal, et. al – “we are notanother mouth to feed when it comes to payments.” That is becauseGoogle, so far, has evidenced no interest in a slice of the feesinvolved in payments. It sees the cash coming through big dataanalytics and well-directed offers to consumers.

Back to Kingsborough, who threw another punch rooted in hisstatement that “consumer adoption is not that easy.” He elaboratedthat the 14-year-old PayPal has more than 100 million users and newentrants – read Google Wallet – will find it is not that easy tobulk up a user base.

Bedier shrugged that off, suggesting that if Google puts out theright services, the consumers will follow. He expressed no concernabout PayPal's significant lead in users.

A point where all panelists seemed to agree was that for anydigital wallet to gain marketplace traction it has to be “simple touse and usable everywhere,” said Kingsborough.

Bedier's wallet vision is that it will be “magical,” helpingconsumers track “every transaction they have ever made” and it willbring a range of targeted offers. He said, “It will happen in thenear future.”

Said Kingsborough: “I don't think there will be 20 [surviving]wallets out there. But there will be more than one.”

Said Bedier: “Consumers go to stores to make a purchase. They donot go to use a particular payments technology. Our goal is toremove the friction from buying” and he seemed to suggest, ifGoogle does that, it will be one of the wallets that win.