According to a recent research carried out by ICM and commissioned by UK mobile commerce company Zapp, only 17 percent of the consumers surveyed have made a mobile payment and the majority (60 percent) of these payments were limited to simple bank transfers between accounts rather than paying for goods and services.
Furthermore, respondents were asked which factors prevented them from making mobile payments, with half saying they saw current mobile payment options as a security risk and one in ten saying complex registration processes put them off.
The report also points out that of those already making mobile payments, one in five (20 percent) have said there are not enough people and places to make payments and 18 percent have answered it was difficult to pay people who don’t use the same mobile payment system.
However, the study finds a strong appetite to pay for a wide range of items if a simple system using existing bank accounts and mobile phones was available that didn’t need additional registration. 86 percent of those already making mobile payments have said they would make more payments with such a system. In total 40 percent of all respondents have said they would use this type of payment system which is a 33 percent uplift from a similar study conducted in February 2013 which demonstrates the fast growth in interest in paying via the mobile phone. The figure was even higher for the 25-34 age group (the demographic most likely to make mobile payments), with 55 percent saying they would use it.
Finally, the report also indicates that of those who have answered they would use their mobile to pay, the top things they have said they would be comfortable paying for were: online shopping (69 percent), groceries (59 percent), entertainment purchases (gigs, cinema, tickets etc) (55 percent) and more than half (54 percent) would pay bills (e.g. utility) using their phones.