Survey by IDC Financial Insights shows that Americans are embracing smartphone transactions.
According to a mobile payments survey conducted by IDC Financial Insights, there has been a doubling in the popularity of transactions completed through smartphones in the United States.
The research was conducted in May 2012 and looked into emerging pay method technologies.
What it discovered was that 33 percent of respondents had used their devices for mobile payments at least once. It also identified significant growth in the area of prepaid cards. The report on the results indicated that IDC believes that this will give banks a sense of urgency to better develop products within those two areas.
IDC stated that it is up to banks to make certain nonbanks won’t be the dominant mobile payment players.
Nonbanks are already placing a significant focus on these two opportunities for significant growth, so it will take some notable effort for banks to make certain that they will remain the primary competitors.
The research also suggested that it would be wise for banks to expand reward programs, as banks are currently holding a spot in the center of the majority of transactions and would therefore have superior data to any of their competition. Banks are also not unfamiliar with offering rewards for the various cards that they have to offer and in combining them with retailers, so this should not be much of a stretch for mobile payments, says IDC.
IDC’s practice director, Aaron McPherson, said that “Based on our results, we expect to see continued growth in open-loop prepaid cards and mobile payments next year, and believe that the improvements being offered in electronic-bill delivery will break electronic-bill presentment and payment out of its doldrums as well.”
He added that by including new offer programs connected to cards, it could boost the way that consumers are influenced by rewards. However, he did also point out that this will be dependent on the level of aggressiveness that the banks choose to use with these programs, and the number of merchants that opt to work with them for their prepaid cards and mobile payments.
