A recent survey has shown that British smartphone users prefer paying with their bank’s services.
Although consumers in the United Kingdom have always had a form of love/hate relationship with their banks, the results of a recent survey have shown that these are still the institutions that smartphone users in that country like the most in terms of mobile payments services.
They may not be thrilled with their banks, but they do trust them in terms of the security of their services.
The mobile payments survey was conducted by U.K.-based firm, VocaLink It included the participation of over 10,000 British people and determined that about 60 percent of them already have smartphones and that the 16 to 24 year old age group has a penetration of 80 percent of these devices. One in four of the device users are already using financial or banking apps of some kind. They are being used, primarily, for accessing the bank details, checking balances, and viewing the transactions that have already been conducted.
The mobile payments report showed that 27 percent of the respondents are using smartphone banking.
It also pointed out that among the participants in the study, 20 percent are already using their devices for making mobile payments. This is much higher among the younger consumers. Mobile payments use was recorded to be 41 percent among smartphone users between the ages of 16 and 24.
In the United Kingdom, the mobile payments market, which is still quite young, has already become very fragmented. Though dominance is held by PayPal Mobile, which is used by 64 percent of the respondents, mobile banking apps came in second. Forty percent of the respondents were users of those applications.
That said, among all of the mobile payments providers, it was the banks that were the most highly trusted. Among those who stated that they were likely to use one of those services, 81 percent expressed that they were more likely to do so if it was offered by their banks. Moreover, they also stated in 45 percent of the cases, they would use the service instead of their debit cards, 35 percent would use it instead of their credit cards, and 28 percent would replace the use of PayPal.
