Mobile Payments Represent Just Three Percent of All Transactions

March 4, 2016 by
Mobile Payments Represent Just Three Percent of All Transactions

While the notion that only around one in every 33 transactions in the United States takes place with mobile payments, that’s not exactly bad news.

With only three percent of transactions in the U.S carried out this way, that could mean there’s plenty of room for growth. It could also mean there’s not a lot of interest.

Most mobile-related payment activity, reports note, takes place online rather than in stores, generally because it’s much easier to make payments from the platform that’s doing the shopping.

That’s not stopping mobile payments platforms from trying to move past smartphones and into more physical applications. Visa, for example, is working on its Visa Ready program, which opens up payments from wearable devices like smartwatches or even smart glasses.

In the United States, mobile payments have some major competition on hand; debit cards are the lion’s share of payment transactions, coming in at 38 percent.

Cash is a clear runner-up, with just 29 percent of payments, followed closely by credit cards at 27 percent. Finally, we have mobile devices, representing just three percent of all transactions.

Customers are having a hard time seeing a reason to turn to mobile payments, reports note, with a lack of easy-to-use loyalty programs or built-in coupon redemption systems two major possibilities for the field.

Given that 37 percent of United States customers consider mobile payments more a gimmick than a viable payment method, there’s a clear separation here between the retailers’ desired outcomes and customers’ common perception. Worse, only a “small number” of these are said to be “fully confident” about things like security.

Better security and better rewards are really the only way to draw new users. If people can use cash or debit cards, they will continue to do so through sheer inertia if absolutely nothing else.

Getting mobile payments users out of this pool will require a reason, and that can be done with better rewards programs. Focusing on security will also be vital, up to and potentially including a protection similar to credit cards, about how a user will never be responsible for bogus charges.

If the value isn’t there, then neither will the users be there. The strategy seems reasonable enough, and the sooner it’s put to work, the sooner users will boost mobile payment use.

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