Only 15 percent of Europeans willing to use mobile financial services - report

The survey, conducted by consultancy company Ovum on behalf of payments services provider Amdocs, reveals that 15 % of the European respondents are likely to adopt advanced mobile financial services products such as savings, loans, insurance and payments while 19% would like to use them for redeeming mobile coupons., Also, 15% would use them to pay for education services and medical treatment. The research also adds that 17% of the respondents say that they are likely to use MFS for buying transport tickets and 18% of them say they would like to use it for online and offline shopping and paying their bills in restaurant. While the trend is similar across almost all countries, Sweden had a significant 30 % of responses highlighting that people are interested in using savings, loans, insurance while 28 % would like to use MFS for redeeming mobile coupons.

However, the report shows that almost 50 % of those surveyed are either unaware about the existence of mobile financial services, or are aware but still don’t use them. From the unbanked group, 75 % claimed that they don’t use MFS at all.

Among factors that European respondents say would encourage usage of mobile financial services are to be mentioned: greater data security (45%), service ubiquity (44%), rewards (37%), low transaction charges (32%) and ease of use (30%). Although the trend is similar across the region, UK has 50 % of respondents willing to use MFS if they are offered rewards for using the services.

The research is based on responses of 8,500 consumers in 17 countries including UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, US, Canada, India, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, South Africa, and Ghana.