FinTech News

Survey Asks “What Could Help Spur Mobile Wallet Adoption?”

There’s no doubt that the use of mobile wallets and contactless payments have increased greatly over the past few years. However, in spite of this, adoption still hasn’t reached the levels that some had previously predicted. This has led companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, and Chase to explore various plans with the hopes of bringing more users to their payment solutions. Now a survey from Vibes (as reported on by Marketing Charts) asks users point blank: “What would get you more interested in using a mobile wallet?”

At the top of the list, 30% of respondents said they’d use mobile wallets more if they knew they could take advantage of special promotions and offers. Not far behind, 27% said their adoption would be spurred by greater organization, meaning their ability to keep coupons, loyalty cards, boarding passes, and more all in one place. Meanwhile 15% said they’d utilize mobile wallets if they could get a tutorial on how to use them.

Incidentally many of these ideas aren’t lost on many mobile wallet providers. For example Samsung Pay offers cash back deals and other rewards. Additionally the recently-renamed Google Pay has been merging a few of their different apps into one, allowing for users to store multiple cards, coupons, and passes. Apple’s Wallet also allows users to store loyalty cards and boarding passes along with Apple Pay cards.

If many of these wishes for mobile wallets are being met, then what’s stopping more smartphone owners from adopting them? Vibes found the that the number one answer to that question was “security,” with 59% of respondents voicing their concerns in regards to mobile wallets. In a distant second, 19% said that most of the retailers they frequent didn’t accept mobile payments. Similarly  17% said they don’t know where mobile wallets are accepted while 12% said they weren’t sure how to access mobile wallets and 6% didn’t even know their phone offered a wallet.

Elsewhere in the study, it was discovered that users would be more likely to save mobile wallet content if it was personalized. In fact 87% of those surveyed said as much — up from just 66% last year. Regardless of personalization, respondents also showed a relatively strong interest in storing loyalty cards in mobile wallets, with 69% in favor of such functionality.

Overall Vibes latest survey details many of the uphill battles that mobile wallets face as they fight for adoption. This is especially true as it seems that even those who say they’d be more on board with mobile wallet if they included certain features weren’t aware that such functionalities may already be available to them. That said the gains seen in terms of how open users are to aspects of mobile wallets is encouraging and will hopefully mean big things for mobile payments and other FinTech technologies down the road.

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