Consumer Awareness of Mobile Payments Increases, Finds an Accenture Survey

By Kevin Woodward
@DTPaymentNews

U.S. consumers are becoming more aware of mobile payments, which could potentially increase use of the burgeoning digital-payment method. Indeed 56% of them are “extremely aware” of the technology, finds the 2016 North America Consumer Digital Payments Survey from Accenture. In 2015, the figure was 52%.

Only 8% of consumers are not at all aware of mobile payments, a decrease from 11% in 2015. More than one-third of consumers—36%—said they were neutral on the technology. Over the past four years, consumer awareness is up. In 2012, only 41% said they were extremely aware of m-payments, and 27% said they were not aware at all.

Accenture calls awareness a “bellwether for consumer readiness to pivot to digital payments.”

The survey of 4,000 consumers also found that they are optimistic about their use of digital payments. For example, 22% expect they will use a mobile wallet provided by a card network in 2020, compared with 14% who do so today. Twenty-one percent said they will use a mobile wallet provided by a technology provider, such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay, in four years, compared with 13% who do so now. Similarly, 21% expect they will use a mobile-payment app provided by a merchant in 2020, though only 16% do so now.

Still, the use of mobile payments at the point of sale remains limited. “Just 19 percent of consumers pay in store with their phones like last year,” Accenture notes in the report. “Those who have yet to (37 percent) point to a simple reason why. Cash and plastic cards meet their needs. The reality too is that merchants have been slow to invest in modern card readers. Even if people want to pay by smartphone, they often cannot.”

The unsettled nature of digital payments means the opportunity is still there for providers, Accenture says. One indicator of which type of payments organizations may fare well is how much trust consumers place in them. On this measure, traditional card providers—at 73%—garnered a higher level of trust from consumers. Following them were alternative payment providers, 63%; established retail banks, 62%; larger technology companies, 59%; and technology startup companies, 24%.

“This trust gap signals that speculation in recent years that only tech startups could ‘own’ the digital payments market is wrong,” the report says. “There is no denying that these digital darlings were the catalysts of the digital payments revolution with their groundbreaking technologies and innovative business models.” While some made inroads, others fell by the wayside, and “in the meantime, traditional players that were once sleeping giants have woken up and are ready to seize the digital payments opportunity.”