Trusted mobile payment operators

Of course, this is a surprise to no one. To evolve from the lab to mass adoption, the highest barrier any technology has to overcome is the ease of adoption. And the young generation is more prone to adopt new technologies than the 65+ generation, especially if they are based on ubiquitous mobile phones.

All studies, as well as mobile wallet and NFC experiments demonstrate that users are happy to make small amount payments, such as mass transit tickets, or daily purchases in convenience stores, with the convenience of a NFC-based mobile wallet. Also, the Alcatel-Lucent Youth Lab survey demonstrates users ask for an additional service besides payment: 89% of the surveyed Young people ranked the ability to “buy a movie ticket without needing to wait in line” as the most appealing application.

Interestingly, when payment of large amounts is considered, responses depend according to the image of the application provider, or, more specifically, of the payment system provider. The typical example of a large amount dematerialized item is a flight ticket. Many users are ready to make purchase flight tickets on their handset only if they have a high level of trust into the service provider.

And guess which brand names the young generation trusts more than banks and mobile operators? The likes of Paypal, Facebook or even Apple! This will leave little space for the traditional stakeholders in mobile payment applications: the financial institutions and the mobile network operators.

Thierry Spanjaard

Chief Editor

Smart Insights