A new survey from Oracle Communications, a business unit dedicated to telecom within Oracle, found that 68 percent of the 3,000 global mobile-phone users it questioned were uncertain about how safe their data is when it's stored or transmitted from a mobile phone--an opinion that has implications on mobile transaction services.

The survey found growth in the number of subscribers who bank online via their phones (28 percent in 2011 compared to 18 percent in 2010) and making online purchases (18 percent versus 9 percent, year over year). However, users still feel reticent about their the security on their phones as just 6 percent said they had made a purchase in a store with a mobile phone. And 21 percent they felt "very comfortable" making a purchase with their mobile device instead of a credit card.

Fears around privacy when it comes to location services appear to have waned, however. Some 33 percent of consumers in 2010 said they were interested in receiving relevant content based on their location. This year, 45 percent said they had already chosen to share location information with an app on their smartphone.