Is Swiss Retail the New Big Target for Mobile Payments?

July 18, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

We know that mobile payments have been gaining plenty of ground worldwide these days, thanks to an ever-increasing number of options in terms of which payment services to use, and where to use these. A new study from Deloitte suggests that Swiss consumers are more ready to put these tools to use than ever before, and that could mean big new growth ahead for Switzerland.

Basically, the Deloitte study found fertile ground for mobile payments: with 42 percent of respondents already using self-checkout machines and 65 percent planning to use these devices down the line, that represents plenty of growth and lots of interested users ready to turn to mobile payments in stores.

Mobile payments themselves, meanwhile, have seen even more growth; 23 percent of respondents used some breed of mobile payment system, and that amount is expected to double before much longer has passed. Users turning to providers for mobile payments is fairly low, around eight percent, but will more than double during the terms of the Deloitte survey’s measurements to reach 17 percent. Even a not-insubstantial 11 percent expected to turn to cryptocurrency as a payment measure.

There’s one really interesting point here: 30 percent of respondents expected they’d be spending more by using mobile payments, where just four percent expected to use mobile spending as a way to save money and better stick to a budget. That number increases among the millennials who took the survey, with 39 percent expecting to spend more.

Making it easier to spend money, and without the psychological attachment of actually pulling bills from your wallet, is a sure way to step up spending for all but the strongest of will. I know this from experience; spending from a mobile system is just a little easier than spending out of a wallet, though I don’t do a lot of mobile and online shopping. It really is a little easier to spend money that doesn’t look like money.

That could mean some big gains in Switzerland, where they’re planning to spend more with mobile and are increasingly willing to use it. Those stores that follow suit could reap a windfall, but how many will actually take the shoppers up on this?