Survey: consumers want financial tools, coupons to adopt mobile payments
It's going to take a lot more than the ability to pay for something to get people to switch to mobile payments. This is according to a new survey by Accenture of 4,000 smartphone users in the United States and Canada.
Of survey respondents who reported that they already use smartphones to make payments, 60 percent said they would be highly likely to pay by phone if they could use their phone to track receipts. Another large group (56 percent) said the ability to manage personal finances would make them more likely to pay by phone. Sixty percent of this group said that instant coupons would make them more likely to pay using a phone, while 51 percent said the same in regard to reward points stored on their phones.
Interestingly, the same services were cited by non-mobile-payment users as more likely to lead them to use mobile payments. Thirty-two percent of that group said the ability to track receipts would spur mobile payment usage. Preferential treatment at retailers was cited by 21 percent as making them more likely to use mobile payments. One in five (20 percent) of non-uses said coupons would encourage mobile payment use.
"Our survey reveals that current users and non-users alike can be incentivized to use their smartphones to make mobile payments through rewards for usage or other value-added tools such as receipt tracking," said Jim Bailey, managing director and head of Accenture Payment Services in North America. "As consumers expect their smartphones to improve and simplify their lives, financial institutions, merchants, mobile network operators and technology providers should consider incorporating new mobile payment applications to encourage broad adoption as quickly as possible."
Not surprisingly, the biggest impediment to widespread adoption of mobile payments is security. Sixty percent of respondents not currently using mobile payments said security was the reason, while 37 percent said privacy issues kept them from trying mobile payments.
"While the industry is preoccupied with the technology roll-out for mobile payments, we found that consumers are still very concerned about security and privacy issues," said Matthew Friend, managing director of Accenture Payment Services in North America. "In addition, a significant number still don’t see the convenience and value of using their phones to make payments. For mobile payments to achieve widespread adoption, consumers must be educated about the fact that mobile payments are secure and more convenient than other payment options. While persuading current users to become more regular users is clearly important, getting people to use this technology in the first place is the biggest challenge the industry faces."
The survey was conducted in October 2012. Participants included 3,401 respondents from the United States and 601 from Canada.
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