6 in 10 US consumers believe smartphone payments will replace payment cards and cash - report

According to a survey conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive, over six in ten US consumers indicate that they believe smartphone payments will eventually replace both payment card (66 percent) and cash (61 percent) transactions for a majority of purchases. While many US consumers perceive this change in payment culture as a likely eventuality, considerably fewer appear to perceive it as imminent: although the aforementioned two-thirds (66 percent) believe smartphone payments will eventually replace payment card transactions, considerably fewer (32 percent) believe this will happen in less than five years. Similarly, fewer than half of those consumers who believe smartphone payments will eventually replace cash for the majority of purchases (61 percent) believe this will happen in less than five years (26 percent).

The study has also found that, despite the majority of US consumers indicating that such changes to collective purchasing habits are ahead, few display a strong interest in replacing their own cash or card transactions with the tap of a smartphone. Although over one-fourth of consumers (27 percent) and nearly half of smartphone users (44 percent) report overall interest in being able to use their smartphone to process in-person payments, fewer specify being very interested in doing so (8 percent and 16 percent, respectively). Nonetheless, it is worth noting that overall interest levels point to some segments which are most interested in this ability. Echo Boomers (40 percent) and Gen Xers (34 percent) display considerably stronger interest in doing so than either Baby Boomers (18 percent) or Matures (7 percent). Men (32 percent) are significantly more interested in this technology than women (22 percent). Additionally, those in households with children (38 percent) also display considerably stronger overall interest than those in households with none (22 percent).

Moreover, the report has shown that among US consumers who indicate being either not very or not at all interested in being able to make smartphone payments, security is a clear factor: half (51 percent) say they don’t want to store sensitive information on their phone and four in ten (40 percent) don’t want to transmit sensitive information to a merchant’s device.

The study has found that another impediment is the matter of smartphone ownership, with half (50 percent) of US consumers indicating they are not interested in smartphone payments because they don’t use a smartphone. Additionally, over half of those not interested (52 percent) indicate that they simply don’t see any reason to switch from cash or payment cards.

Furthermore, for smartphone owners who are not interested in using their devices to process payments security concerns (68 percent don’t want to store sensitive information on their phones, 51 percent don’t want to transmit sensitive information to the merchant’s device) and general apathy toward such a shift (62 percent don’t see any reason to switch) are still strong. While just over one-fourth of US consumers (28 percent) and four in ten smartphone owners (40 percent) indicate that being able to make mobile payments while still taking advantage of their existing credit card reward programs would make them more interested in doing so, far fewer (9 percent and 15 percent, respectively) specify that they would be much more interested.

Finally, the study has found that in what concerns the ability to use smartphones as a digital wallet, three in ten US consumers (30 percent) and over four in ten smartphone owners (43 percent) indicate it would make them more interested in doing so, but far fewer (8 percent and 12 percent, respectively) specify that it would make them much more interested. Only 12 percent of those not interested in paying with smartphones overall indicate that this would make them more interested (and only 2 percent indicate it would make them much more interested).