Are Mobile Payments in our Future?

It’s the beginning of the NFC (near field communication) mobile payments era and consumers want the ability to pay with their mobile phones at stores or restaurants. In a recent survey of U.S. consumers, MasterCard found that many people are ready to change how they make payments.

Survey Findings

People age 18-34 year-olds are particularly ready to take their transactions to the next level:

• 63% would be fine using mobile phones to make purchases versus people age 35 or older, only 37%.

This shows that mobile payments would first be adopted by the younger generation, or people who enjoy trying new technology.

The survey results reflected some other interesting differences in the responses of males versus females:

• More men (51%) than women (40%) who have a mobile phone would be at ease making mobile payments.
• Women (50%) more than men (36%) feel more exposed without their mobile device than their wallet.

To make people feel comfortable using mobile payments, guaranteeing information security was a big factor.

• Nearly 62% of those surveyed said they need to know that their personal information is safe when making a transaction, voicing trust and privacy concerns.

As the mobile payments industry continues to grows, so will the level of security of the technology. In the future, maybe our mobile phones will replace our wallets.