A new survey commissioned by venture capital firm nVest Ventures that surveyed 5,000 UK respondents found that 11% of those questioned said they have already paid for a purchase in a store with their phone or an app on their smartphone with a further 18% of respondents expressing interest despite not making a mobile payment to date.
Commenting on the survey, Kerry Rheinstein, head of nVest said,
“The entrance of Apple Pay into the UK marketplace highlights the future becoming more cashless. Consumers are looking for alternative payment methods such as Apple Pay for speed and convenience, but also for more control over their finances using synced systems and smart prediction methods. “Innovation doesn’t stop at Apple Pay, we anticipate new payment methods that are more secure such as biometric payments, using heartbeat as a way to authenticate payment, or completely cashless payments based on data exchange and social currency. Cashless systems allow for greater personalization of perks and services which underlines the thrust of UK consumer expectation over the coming years.”
While not the focus of the research, the survey demonstrated that value add through services like money management and other personal financial management tools are critical to greater mobile phone use for financial services. According to the survey, 35% of respondents would be interested in a service which uses their spending habits to project their future finances (with 58% of millennials expressing a desire for this service).
Though UK surveys in the past few years have been somewhat contradictory with some suggesting consumer apathy toward mobile payments and other suggesting interest, the fact is that mobile payments will increasingly play an important role in the market but will need a value proposition that is stronger than contactless cards which at the moment does not exist.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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