Mobile Payments: Only If Relevant and Useful

Mercator Advisory Group’s most recent Insight Report from the CustomerMonitor Survey Series reveals that 38% of U.S. adults, especially young adults (62%), are interested in wearable technology devices with a mobile interface that enables various activities, which may include making payments or mobile banking. (These devices typically cost $100 or more.) When asked to rate the importance of 11 features to include on such a device, 50% of respondents interested in wearable technology considered mobile banking and, separately, making payments to be important.

Consumers are expressing growing interest in a wide variety of mobile payments in 2014 as they begin using mobile banking and more retailers provide mobile apps for payments. Mobile Payments: Only If Relevant and Useful, a report from Mercator Advisory Group, reveals mobile payments is of growing interest and use as 43% of U.S. consumers surveyed have tried mobile payments, up from 31% in 2013.

This study examines the demographic shift and changing landscape of Web-enabled mobile users, consumer use, interest, and satisfaction with mobile devices for payment for both payment acceptance and making payments in-store and online, use and brands of mobile-based card readers for money transfer services, use, interest and important features of new technologies such as wearable technology for payments, related payment features including e-couponing, e-receipting, e-loyalty as well as payment, balance, and fraud alerts.

The report findings are based Mercator’s CustomerMonitor Survey Series online panel of 3,002 U.S. adult consumers surveyed in June 2014.

“Now that most U.S. consumers own a smartphone and mobile ownership keeps rising, more consumers have tried mobile payments at online retailers and even in stores at checkout, thanks mostly to retailers’ mobile payment apps like Starbuck’s and others. Timely and useful e-coupons, discounts, and loyalty rewards and even e-receipt management stimulates mobile payment use. Consumer enthusiasm for new wearable technology demonstrates that consumers want to use mobile payments but only if it’s easy to use and embedded with other relevant functionality,” states Karen Augustine, author of the report and manager of Primary Data Services at Mercator Advisory Group, which includes the CustomerMonitor Survey Series.