Consumers interested in contactless payment say they find the process easy and fast to use, according to research from Javelin Strategy & Research.
In a fall online survey of 5,000 U.S. adult consumers, 57% of respondents cited ease of use when asked their primary reason for using a contactless card or device for payments (see chart). Speed of payment was the second-highest cited reason at 53%.
But issuers of contactless technology should rethink how they promote it, contends James Van Dyke, president of Javelin Strategy & Research.
“It’s not so much that issuers are not promoting it enough, but they are consistently promoting it wrong,” Van Dyke tells PaymentsSource. “It’s not a bad technology. The difficulty is that some industry executives hope they can just force it on people and not analyze why consumers are interested in using it.”
Using contactless cards for applications that save consumers time, such as transit and tolls, are the best applications so far, he says.
Moreover, issuers might have more success with contactless cards if they used more efficient ways to promote it, such presenting it as a stepping stone to mobile payments, Van Dyke says.
“Small examples can gain a foothold, and that’s what success in payments is all about,” he says. For example, weekend athletes such as cyclists may prefer not to carry a wallet and would rather use a mobile contactless application for payment, Van Dyke says.
Another option is to rethink the form factor, he says. Issuers could find ways to allow contactless-payment devices to work better from a distance while ensuring that consumers do not accidentally make payments, says Van Dyke.
“What I see now are very expensive ad campaigns promising benefits that are truly not there,” he says. “It’s like we’re ignoring the fundamental benefits of speed and convenience.”
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