- July 17, 2013
- Digital Payments
- No Comments
- Mobile Payments, Payment Security, Vocalink
The Tipping Point of Mobile Payments
According to Wikipedia, a tipping point is ‘a point in time when a group —or a large number of group members— rapidly and dramatically changes its behaviour by widely adopting a previously rare practice.’
In a PayX blog in December 2012 we talked about Mobile payments reaching a tipping point – ‘maybe we have reached tipping point with the likes of iZettle, LevelUp, mPowa, PayPal, etc. Square is getting attention & big deals – the Starbucks rollout being the most obvious. NFC continues to grow. Banking Apps really have moved from being pure online banking clones to becoming a popular feature which users have embraced.’
VocaLink have recently released a whitepaper also looking at whether we have now reached a tipping point with mobile payments. They conducted a large piece of research talking to more than 10,000 adults across the UK about their mobile usage habits. Trust and security feature every highly in people’s decisions to use mobile payments. People would be much more confident if the banks were actually providing the service themselves. VocaLink therefore suggests that ‘a bank-provided mobile payment app is the next logical step’. It suggests that a ‘see your balance on screen’ feature alone might be the tipping point for mass adoption, as consumers can see the current state of their accounts right then and there and make informed decisions on outgoing payments.
From various research it does seem that trust and security fears are the main obstacles in mass adoption of mobile payments. When we still continue to hear of security glitches in banks and other organisations that release personal data and cyber criminals managing to steal data, will these fears ever be truly allayed? Maybe it is related also to generations and as the younger more tech-savvy generations mature, mobile payments will become the norm.
We would love to hear your thoughts and comments on the subject, so feel free to share your opinions.
To read more about VocaLink’s research and to download their whitepaper visit: http://www.vocalink.com/payments-innovation/mobilepaymentsresearch.aspx