Wirecard Study: Customers Increasingly Hungry for Mobile Payments

Sometimes, the mobile payments field might seem a bit stagnant to outside viewers. After all, for all the gains we’ve seen in technology and security and everything else, the stores just don’t seem all that interested in letting the end user put them to work. However, that’s a point that may change soon, thanks to some research the folks at Wirecard sent our way.

The biggest point in the Wirecard research is that mobile payments are now considered the most important shopping-related technology to improve customers’ buying experience. That’s the case for 58 percent of customers, followed by biometric-linked payments or cashierless stores for 45 percent. Augmented and / or virtual reality (AR / VR) store experiences came in third with just 25 percent of the total. There’s also a growing demand for biometrics, as 68 percent of customers expressed an interest in that.

Mobile payments are now considered a “given” for 44 percent of customers, who noted they were less likely to shop with a store that didn’t offer acceptance for mobile payments tools. Biometric payments were similarly attractive to customers.

Consumers also strongly put convenience ahead of many other standards. By way of this, 71 percent were interested in self-checkout options, and 65 percent were interested in “smart mirror” technology that allowed users to look at or request other products without having to go through a checkout procedure. Unmanned stores also proved popular to 61 percent of respondents.

Interest on these points varied, oddly enough, by location. Thailand and Brazil proved eager participants in VR, smart mirror, and similar technologies, while shoppers in Australia, France and the US were among the least interested.

So to those businesses who haven’t brought at least some brand of mobile payments to a store yet, you delay at your own risk. The Wirecard research makes it clear: customers want this technology in place, and they wanted it there yesterday. With so many safe, useful, and worthwhile mobile payments options in play, there’s no reason to continue avoiding this technology.

Mobile payments has finally come into its own. We’ve been following this technology for several years now, and it’s always seemed like a just-around-the-corner sort of system. With the latest reports from Wirecard, though, it’s a lot closer to a full reality than many may have expected.