Gen Z and Millennials are paving the way to “doing life” from the convenience of their smartphones. For them, interacting with financial institutions, merchants and peers via their mobile devices is more than convenient, it is second nature and all they’ve ever known.

Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation, out of COVID related necessity, had to surrender to some digital payment methods over the past couple of years.  Post pandemic, many default to their more traditional payment practices rather than leverage payment service options that are the go-tos for the younger generations.

This report is based on Mercator Advisory Group’s North American PaymentsInsights series annual survey. A web-based survey was fielded in 2022, using a US online consumer research panel of adults aged 18 and older. The survey of 3,010 US adults focused on trends in payments, prepaid/gift, credit, and debit card verticals, highlighting key consumer behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes.

The panel of  3,010 respondents supports a sampling error of +/– 1.8% at the 95% confidence level for questions asked of all respondents, as well as at many sub- segment levels designed to approximate a random sample.

The online questionnaire used for this study was developed by Mercator Advisory Group in consultation with our clients, which represent a range of payments industry stakeholders.