Tag: us mobile payments

While people are using smartphone based wallets more often, it doesn’t appear to be reducing cash use.

According to the most recent digital money index issued by Citigroup in partnership with the Imperial College of London, mobile payments are rapidly becoming more popular in the United States and the United Kingdom, but the least developed countries worldwide aren’t able to use this technology to reduce the use of cash and checks every year.

The hope has been to replace cash and checks with mobile transactions because of the cost reduction.

Transactions in the form of cash and checks cost billions of dollars to maintain every year, which explains why developing nations are placing a considerable focus on mobile payments. The hope is that they will replace a large portion of the use of cash and checks; and the costs associated with those transactions. However, while mobile wallets are becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. and the U.K., they’re not having the desired impact on cash and check use in the developing world.

The report showed that there is a growing gap between the countries that are most and least ready for mobile payments.

According to Sandeep Dave, the head of global digital strategy at Citigroup, “What we found this year is actually pretty stark.” He explained that “The incipient countries that have a long way to go, they almost showed a zero improvement against 2014 scores [while] the materially ready countries showed the most improvement.”

At the highest end of the index, Finland has found itself in the top spot for the third year in a row. Singapore is in second place, followed by the United States. The United Kingdom jumped upward in the index by three places in 2015 when compared to its position in 2014. This brought the U.K. to the fourth spot in the most recent index.

Mr. Dave underscored the fact that, as a whole, progress was not rapid in 2015 in terms of the adoption of mobile payments in favor of cash and checks. He stated that the most recent research from the firm indicated that the primary barrier to the use of the digital transactions was consumer attitudes as the tech, market support and digital money products and wallet apps are all essentially available where they need to be.

Apple Pay has become a success in the United States

Apple has established success in the U.S. mobile payments market. The company has been fighting to find a foothold in the mobile payments space for some time, but successfully did so with the launch of its own payment service, called Apple Pay. The service was launched in late 2014 and adoption has been steadily growing throughout the United States since then. Apple Pay has won praise because of its security features and convenient nature, which has made it one of the most used mobile payments services in the country.

Report highlights the growing power of Apple Pay

Piper Jaffray, and investment bank, has released statistics concerning the mobile payments market, showing that Apple is leading the way. The report from Piper Jaffray shows that approximately 20% of iPhone users have adopted Apple Pay. While the adoption of the payments service among iPhone users may seem low, the report notes that Apple Pay is the overwhelming share leader when it comes to point-of-sale mobile payments. The success that Apple has found has made it more attractive to banks, which are beginning to show more support for its payment services. In September, 515 banks were supporting Apple Pay. Now, however, more than 930 are supporting the service.

Apple expected to continue finding success in the mobile payments market

The report predicts that Apple Pay will continue to find success in the mobile payments market. Apple is planning to introduce new features that may secure this success. These features are rumored to include better support for loyalty programs, particularly those that have been put in place by large retailers. Apple Pay may also find success in other countries as Apple attempts to break into new mobile payments markets throughout the world.

Competition in other countries may prove fierce for Apple

Apple has faced strong competition in the mobile payments space. Google, Samsung and several other companies have become involved in this sector and have been vying for the support of consumers and businesses alike. In other countries, Apple may find more ferocious competition, especially as foreign banks have shown relatively little interest in the company’s mobile payments service.