According to Visa’s 2016 Digital Payments Study, the number of consumers regularly using a mobile device – whether a smartphone, tablet or wearable – to make payments has tripled in the past year. Currently, 54 per cent of consumers surveyed regularly use a mobile device to make payments for a range of activities, compared to just 18 per cent who were asked whether they used mobile payments to pay for everyday goods and services when the same study was conducted last year.
The study, which surveyed more than 36,000 online consumers in 19 European countries, reveals how consumer adoption of digital payments has shifted dramatically in the past 12 months. A year ago, 38 per cent of the people surveyed said they had never used a mobile device to make payments and had no plans to do so. Today, that number has dropped to 12 per cent.
When looking at the top 10 countries where mobile payments are most prevalent, they fall into two categories: developing markets such as Turkey and Romania, which have been leapfrogging traditional payment methods to adopt new technologies faster; and developed markets – particularly the Nordics – which are evolving to new technologies at differing paces.
Interestingly, the study shows that mobile payments users also say that they are as comfortable making more expensive purchases on mobile devices as they are with everyday payments.
The research also shows that mobile banking activity is increasing across all age groups. For the first time, more than half of European respondents in all age brackets are using mobile banking. While millennials remain the most prolific category, other age groups are rapidly catching up. With a growth rate of 33 per cent, the highest growth rate is the 55-64 year olds, while millennials 18-34 have a growth rate of 24 per cent.
The highest growth rate is the 55-64 year olds, while millennials 18-34 have a growth rate of 24 per cent
A mobile payments user is defined as someone who uses their phone, tablet or wearable to manage their money or make a payment in person, online or in-app.
Visa commissioned the Digital Payments research with Populus. The research was conducted between August and September in 19 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. The total sample size was 36,843 consumers, with approximately 2,000 respondents per country.
Visa Inc. is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. It operate one of the world’s most advanced processing networks – VisaNet – that is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants.
Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead with prepaid or pay later with credit products.
Across Europe, the uptick in the number of respondents using mobile banking is also helping more people to keep track of their spending and financial responsibilities – two-fifths (41 per cent) say they regularly check their balance online or via a banking app.
This increase in engagement with digital payments coincides with greater adoption of contactless technology. The research indicates that, across all age groups, contactless payments are now the norm
Europe-wide, contactless users are also consistently more open to embracing newer payment methods than those who don’t use contactless cards.
The study highlights the correlation between contactless usage and new payment methods, revealing that contactless card users are more interested in using a mobile device as a payment method in a shop (52 per cent contactless card user vs 32 per cent non-contactless card user), shopping via a retailer app (49 per cent vs 31 per cent) or using a mobile device to pay for a meal (50 per cent vs 30 per cent).