It’s no secret by now that the British love mobile payment systems. In fact, some reports suggest the Brits use mobile payments more often than much of the rest of Europe. What’s more—based on word form the DCC Forum—the Brits are taking the mobile payment act on the road, using mobile payments in completely different countries where possible, and at some pretty rapid rates.
The baseline alone is pretty impressive; five percent of all British millennial vacationers used either Apple Pay or Android Pay this year, and 10 percent made a payment via contactless card. Nothing particularly Earth-shattering here, but by like token, not half bad.
The real winner to the DCC Forum’s reports, though, notes that 21 percent of all vacationing Brits between the ages of 18 and 34 didn’t actually make any cash payments while on vacation over the course of the last 12 months.
That in turn suggests some important facts: one, vacationing Brits are taking to mobile payments in pretty large numbers, though not necessarily the biggest such systems like Apple Pay and Android Pay. Two, vacationing Brits are finding some way around the spending minimums, though those might not apply when leaving the country.
If they do, either they’re vacationing cheaply, or they’re using some other payment source for larger tabs, like a credit card.
Regardless, it’s clear that the British fondness for mobile payment systems is carrying on apace and even spreading into the various other facets of the British experience, even vacations. That’s a welcome sign for its long-term prospects; when a technology starts bleeding over into other parts of the culture, that’s a safe bet that it’s going mainstream and is thus likely to hold on longer, eventually becoming a larger part of the equation. That millennials appear so enamored with mobile payments is especially gratifying; it all but ensures this will be a mainstream development for the next 20 years or so.
A couple decades of mobile payments will be welcome, and the advances we’ll likely see in that time will only make the field progress further. That’s also welcome news, and it’s all thanks to things like the Brits taking mobile payment systems on vacation.