Mastercard: Mobile Shoppers Want Mobile Payments Options Too
While we hear a lot about mobile payments in brick-and-mortar stores, there’s one section of mobile payments that we don’t much hear about but probably should, since it’s a natural compliment. Specifically, it’s mobile shopping, and new word from the 2019 Mastercard Digital Payments Study says that mobile shoppers want to pay they same way they shop: using mobile payments.
The study analyzed over 3.3 million global social media conversations, drawing on tools from Instagram to Weibo, and discovered that mobile payments played a big part in everyday social media conversations. Mobile payments accounted for just over 27 percent of social media conversations about payments, and total mentions were up 20 percent over this time last year. Mobile wallet mentions, meanwhile, actually doubled over 2017’s figures, and then some.
India proved the leader in wallet discussion, which tended to focus on their relation to public transportation, as well as quick response (QR) code use. This gave rise to child discussions of PaytmQR and MasterpassQR in the region. The United States, meanwhile, came in second in discussions, though it was a pretty long second, reports noted.
The best news for mobile payments here is that almost all of the discussions—a hefty 95 percent—were positive. Praise for efficiency, speed and simplicity of mobile payments came up almost one time in three at 30 percent. Other topics included security, issues of tokenization, breaking news about data breaches and where new security technologies could lend a hand.
It’s not surprising to see that mobile shoppers want to put mobile payments to use. After all, they’re right there anyway, so why wouldn’t they want to use a platform that’s often running on the same device they’re using to shop anyway? It means less switching between tools and interfaces, and of course more options, which are commonly welcome to shoppers of just about any medium.
While mobile payments haven’t always been recognized as useful in the past, that perception is rapidly changing. That’s good news for shoppers, and for businesses, who now can be certain that bringing mobile payments to their checkout systems will be welcome.