Paying with your face and car is the new paying with your phone - CNET

Visa also sees potential in wearable technology and other connected objects. "If it has connectivity there's a potential that somebody might want to use it to pay, whether it's a watch or a raincoat," said Sam Shrauger, Visa's senior vice president of digital solutions, in an interview at the company's booth.

This isn't unique to Visa. Samsung's screen-clad smart fridge, which debuted at CES, lets you order and pay for groceries.

Despite these new methods, consumers and retailers don't seem that interested. Gerry Granovsky, Moody's analyst focused on technology and payment, said he's skeptical about the viability of many new payments concepts. "They sound good on paper," he said, but consumers seem just as happy to stick with their credit and debit cards.

That's the same problem mobile payments has faced for years, with even the most prominent system, Apple Pay, seeing slow adoption. Only 14 percent of US adults who use a phone planned to use a mobile payments service even once during the 2015 holiday season, according to a Bankrate.com study.

To get people more interested in these new payment services, companies need to build them deeper into the shopping process, not just as another option at checkout, said Alejandra Tejada, a manager for marketing researcher Millward Brown Digital.

Instead of just allowing people to pay with their watch at the register, she suggested letting customers do so around the store and bypass the checkout line altogether.

"You have to take a step back and put yourself in the consumer's shoes," she said, "and ask, 'What am I saving here?' "

This hasn't escaped the notice of PayPal, which is working out how to ensure its newly overhauled mobile app can be used to enhance every transaction, even those made in the real world. "Mobile is blurring the distinction between the online and in-store environments," said PayPal CEO Daniel Schulman, during his MWC keynote.

The new app separates the pay-in-store and order-ahead features to make the process of paying in real life using your PayPal wallet easier. The company also expanded the reach of its One Touch feature, which lets you pay on mobile by tapping on the screen without entering your credentials or shipping detail, said Jo Lambert, PayPal's vice president of consumer products. It is the fastest adopted PayPal feature ever launched.

Mastercard, meanwhile, first announced its "selfie" payment option last year, but showed it off at MWC last week. It uses the phone's front-facing camera and a single blink to verify the identity of the buyer.

I managed to pounce on a spare selfie pay-enabled smartphone to try this out. Unfortunately, the phone's screen was projected onto a large display at Mastercard's MWC booth, so when the payment was declined, the whole show floor witnessed my humiliation. The phone hadn't been set up to work with my face, so at least I know it's secure.

While these finance companies are experimenting with different pieces of tech, there's still a lot of love for simple plastic. "The card needs to evolve to suit a world that it was not envisioned for when it was first created," Shrauger said.