There’s no doubt that the global Covid-19 pandemic fuelled a surge in the volume and value of mobile payments made using digital wallets, but it’s a surge that shows no sign of slowing down and a change in behaviour that is here to stay. We’ve written many times about the parallel surge in the use and acceptance of QR codes – and they also play a major role in the mobile payments market.
Writing in The Paypers, Jonathan Bennett, the Chief Commercial Officer for Japanese giants DOCOMO Digital, also predicted that - as consumers became progressively more comfortable using their smartphones to make payments - carrier billing would rise up the charts in terms of mobile digital wallet options.
The global growth being seen across this market was confirmed by a survey carried out by the analysts at 451 Research. Taking in nearly 4,000 consumers in the US, China, India, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and the UK, the research found that digital wallets were now accounting for some 27 per cent of in-store spending, 41 per cent of ecommerce and 46 per cent of mobile commerce transactions.
Perhaps even more remarkably, digital wallet transaction values are forecast to exceed USD 10 trillion as soon as 2025 and are already the most frequently used digital payment service globally. And although take up in Asia might be running at the twice the rate that it is in the US, the global growth sees more than half of users making three or more transactions every month, and a quarter making seven or more monthly transactions.
And it is not just one analyst house highlighting this trend. Bennett references supporting data from McKinsey and also Juniper Research in his detailed study of the current market conditions and take-up.
And right at the end of November, news broke that payments made using smartphones had accounted for 34 per cent of bank card transactions in Russia, and 31 per cent of the value – both representing almost double digit annual growth in percentage points.
Aside from convenience, payments made using smartphones – whether contactless in-store or online – have much greater in-built security through facial recognition or fingerprint reading technology than other contactless systems. Consumers have very quickly become comfortable with the process and much happier with the security.
Our Onescan payment system for smartphones, built to run on Ensygnia’s patented secure and encrypted transaction platform, is fully on board with this global growth surge. Capable of being used in-store, online, or even from a printed page, Onescan is compatible with any digital wallet, payment card or carrier billing. It’s easy for retailers to set up, has no transaction limit, and consumers don’t need to download anything in advance to use Onescan.
You can find out more here.