Shoppers Want More Mobile Payments, But Geography Makes a Difference

Mobile payments have been gaining ground routinely for some time now, but it’s not surprising to find that the interest in this technology is stronger in some places than in others.

A new report from GfK found that there are some areas who want to get in more so than others, and on average, about two out of every five consumers are eager to get in.

The global average of Internet users worldwide who look forward to making more transactions on a mobile device, the GfK study revealed, is 41 percent, a little better than two in five.

That average would actually be much higher if not for the people who have had mobile payments the longest: Europe and the United States. The US has the lowest interest, with 26 percent of those studied, and Europe is only slightly better at 28 percent.

However, interest takes off like a rocket from there. Fifty-one percent of Asia is interested in more mobile payments, and the South Africa / Turkey corridor is at 52 percent. Topping them all is Latin America, eager for more mobile payments in 65 percent of cases.

Some suggest that concerns about security still linger for the United States markets; those concerned about personal information have actually increased, from 52 percent in 2015 to 55 percent in 2016. This is oddly contradictory; those confident of 100 percent security increased in that same period from 20 to 24 percent, and those who considered mobile payments safer than other methods increased from 16 to 19 percent.

That’s a strange dichotomy, and given what we’ve heard so far, it’s possible that the GfK study represents a statistical anomaly, people from the US and Europe who are perhaps unduly fearful. Yet with this in mind, one point becomes clear: there is no real excess of security when it comes to mobile payments. As long as the payment platform can actually be used, the security involved has not reached levels best described as overkill.

So those who put greater security into mobile payments—using biometrics or two-factor authentication will likely help—are likely to see gains not only from those countries eager for more, but also from those who are a bit more hesitant.