Though many major international companies such as Google, banks, payment processors, and retailers such as Toys R Us and Gap, are working together to offer customers the ability to use their mobile devices to pay for their purchases, a recent KPMG study is showing that it will still be another few years before the payment method truly goes mainstream.
In fact, the study’s results indicate that only 23 percent of consumers are currently willing to use their smartphones to complete a payment transaction instead of cash, credit, or debit. Within the young adult demographic, that figure was 30 percent. Among the most significant obstacles to the adoption of this technology is that many companies and consumers have doubt in the security and convenience when compared to debit, credit, or cash.
There were 970 companies that took part in this survey, and among them 71 percent said that they would first need solutions for security concerns before they would be willing to take on mobile payments.
According to the Google Wallet business product manager, Marc Freed-Finnegan Sr., for the majority of consumers using a mobile phone to make payments is a brand new thing. He added that “We’re also working hard to educate people about why mobile payments represent the future of commerce.”
The second challenge to adoption is the availability of the contactless payment reader devices and the cost associated with their purchase (or rental) and installation. Across the United States, so far, there are only approximately 500,000 reader machines for near field communication (NFC) payments that have been installed at points of sale.
