Use of mobile devices to make payments triples
According to Visa’s 2016 Digital Payments Study, the number of consumers regularly using a smartphone, tablet, or wearable to pay for goods has jumped from 18% to 53%.
One year ago, 38% of the people surveyed said they had never used a mobile device to make payments and had no plans to do so. Today, that number has dropped to 12%.
Around 54% of European consumers said they regularly use a mobile device to make payments for a range of activities, compared to just 18% when the same study was conducted last year.
In Ireland, a third (34%) purchase high-value items, such as holidays and electronics, on a mobile device, as well as making regular transactions, such as paying household bills (38%) and paying for parking (20%).
Nearly four out of five Irish people surveyed are mobile-payments users, with nearly half of these people using their device to transfer money to friends and family, and over a third to purchase bus or train tickets.
The research also shows that mobile banking is increasing across all age groups.
For the first time, more than half of European respondents in all age brackets are using mobile banking. In Ireland, more than half (58%) of 55 to 64-year-olds use a mobile device for banking.
This increase in engagement with digital payments coincides with greater up-take of contactless technology. The research found that, across all age groups, contactless payments are now the norm. In Ireland, almost two thirds of the people surveyed (65%) used contactless cards this year.
Country manager at Visa Ireland, Philip Konopik, said the figures are proof of the “broader trend” that digital payments are gradually becoming the norm for Irish consumers.
