As consumers become more comfortable with such technologies as unlocking a car from inside the house to recording movies remotely they are becoming more interested in using mobile phones for payments, survey data from MasterCard Worldwide suggest.
The e-mail and online survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers Kelton Research conducted for MasterCard between April 15 and April 22 found that 62% of participants who use a mobile phone would be open to use it to make purchases.
Of those respondents ages 18 to 34, 63% said they would feel comfortable using mobile phones for payments, and 65% said they “feel more naked” without their phones than without their wallets. Among those surveyed older than 35, 37% said they would use their phones to pay, and 34% said they felt more uncomfortable without their phones than without their wallets.
Among the survey participants, 300 were ages 18 to 34, and 700 were 35 or older, MasterCard says.
“Consumers are already living a mobile lifestyle, so using their phones to make payments on a daily basis is a natural step,” Mung Ki Woo, MasterCard group executive for mobile, said in a press release. “2011 is the beginning of the NFC mobile payments era, and consumers are eager to get their hands on the first commercial deployments in the U.S.”
According to MasterCard’s survey, 54% of respondents believe individuals’ phone’s are more telling of their personality than their wallets. The survey’s findings appear to validate that many consumers, particularly younger ones, would discard their bulky wallets if they could use their mobile phones instead to pay at the point of sale, MasterCard said in an e-mailed statement.
Gender also plays a role in whether someone would use mobile phones for payments, the survey data suggest. Men, at 51% of respondents, said they would be comfortable using a mobile phone to make purchases compared with 40% of women respondents who said they would be. Moreover, 49% of men versus 45% of women said they would be impressed by someone who paid a bill with a mobile application instead of with a credit card. Among women, however, 45% of respondents said they felt more exposed without their phones than without their wallets compared with 34% of men who did.
Despite consumer interest in mobile payments, trust and privacy are significant factors in making consumers comfortable using mobile phones for payment, the survey data suggest. Among respondents, 62% said they would need confirmation that their personal information is safe to be comfortable making mobile transactions.
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