Consumer anxiousness over the imminent adoption of mobile payments appears widespread. Research and advisory group, Gx, found that just 10% of European non-users viewed mobile payments as safer than other methods.
Mobile payments offer an alternative to cash, cheque and credit cards. Instead, a consumer can pay for goods using their mobile phone. The technology is slowly gaining traction, but is still some way off the $600 billion combined market value predicted by Juniper for 2013.
Security perceptions by those using mobile payments are evenly split. However, according to Dr Dan Horne, a professor of consumer research at Providence College in the US, their views are not set in stone.
“The beliefs exhibited by non-users are likely to be weakly held because they are based on things they have overheard or read online rather than based on actual experience,” Horne said.
Speed is Mobile Payments’ Main Draw
An appetite definitely exists for mobile payments among current and non-users. The main reason given by research respondents was it being significantly faster than other payments by those who had experienced mobile payments.
Across Europe those who have yet to use mobile payments of any kind are aware of their advantage, with 32.2% (UK), 39.6% (France), 44.5% (Germany) and 50.5% (Italy) agreeing that mobile transactions are faster.
The groundwork may already be laid, but Horne believes the impetus for further education must come from payment providers. “Organised efforts by the industry to communicate factual information should provide significant reassurance and thus increase adoption,” he said.