Tag: smartphone wallets

Industry analysts had predicted that Apple would kick smartphone wallets into gear but that might not be it.

When Apple Pay was launched, many analysts believed this would be the start of powerful mobile payments trends. They felt that Apple was the key to the mainstream adoption of mobile wallets. That said, that wallet app has now been available for about two years and adoption has been slower than anticipated.

Some analysts are now saying that the start of the widespread use of mobile payments won’t happen for some time.

A couple of years ago, mobile payments trends were expected to become the next big thing. By now, it would be commonplace to see shoppers using their smartphones in-store to pay for groceries, clothing and other purchases. It would be routine to use a mobile device instead of a credit card or debit card at a checkout counter.

However, mobile wallets have not taken off as expected. This has been the case both among mobile device users and among retailers. Now Fitch Ratings financial industry group director Michael Taino is predicting that the rate of adoption for mobile payments won’t just be slightly slower than expected. It will be much slower.

Taiano predicts that mobile payments trends won’t truly take off for multiple decades.

In an interview with Fortune magazine, Taiano was quoted as saying that “This could be a multi-decade change that occurs.” He said that the adoption by consumers and retailers may be similar to the experience seen in the growth of e-commerce. He pointed out that as large as e-commerce now is and as much as it has grown over 20 years, it still represents only 8 percent of retail spending in the United States.

Taiano recently published a report based on his conclusions and the evidence that has led him to make them. He underscored a number of barriers that have stood in the way of mainstream mobile wallet adoption.

One hurdle in the way of mobile payments trends progress has been the lack of incentive to consumers. Shoppers find credit and debit card use to be simple, familiar and accepted in the majority of places they shop. Therefore, at the moment they don’t have much motivation to change those easy and convenient habits.

A new ACI Worldwide report has shown that there are two major priorities for these payment apps.

The results of a new ACI Worldwide survey have now been released and, within them, it has been revealed that retailers considering mobile wallet apps are most interested in two major issues: security and the ability to use rewards programs.

That said, between those leading issues, it is the mobile security features that tops the list.

Among the retailers who responded to the survey, two out of every three said that the security aspect of mobile wallet apps is their leading concern. This demand from retailers for mobile payments solutions that provide adequate security should help to assuage some of the concerns that consumers have also expressed with regards to adopting these new types of transaction technologies.

That said, beyond security, there were a number of other expectations retailers had for mobile wallet apps.

Seventy two percent of the surveyed retailers said that security was their top issue for their mobile commerce apps, in general, but when it came to payments, that figure rose to 75 percent. However, just slightly less – 71 percent – said that they wanted the integration of loyalty options into m-commerce apps, while 55 percent were concerned about that issue with mobile payments apps. Another 55 percent said it was important to be able to achieve seamless ordering through the use of the shopping applications but for wallet apps, that was seen as important only among 46 percent of the respondents.

According to the ACI Worldwide vice president, product line manager, Lynn Holland, in the company’s release on the study, “The proliferation of retail digital channels demonstrates the trend that ‘clicks upstage bricks,’ but even consumers shopping at traditional brick and mortar stores are increasingly using in-store browsing capabilities, which puts the power of information in sales associates’ and consumers’ hands.”

Holland also pointed out that no matter the channel, the results of the research indicated that over m-commerce and mobile wallets, payment security remains a top concern among retailers considering the use of this tech, especially in issues such as point-to-point encryption and tokenization.