Mobile payments head towards mainstream, Fiserv

US consumers are paying more bills from mobile devices and making more person-to-person payments, and they are also venturing into digital wallets, according to Fiserv research involving 3,000-plus people. “Consumers are living more digital lives, and that is being reflected in the way they pay,” says Mark Ernst, Chief Operating Officer, Fiserv. “Bill payments and person-to-person payments from mobile devices are making their way toward the mainstream, while digital wallets are showing slow but steady growth reminiscent of the early days of online banking.”

The percentage of consumers using mobile bill pay was up from late 2015 to late 2016, growing from 22 to 28%. Among mobile banking users, 41% used the service to pay bills in the past 30 days. The share of consumers using P2P payments via a financial organisation in the past 30 days increased by more than one-third from 2015 to 2016, going from 14 to 19%. Security concerns are a lower barrier to adoption than in the past, with the percent of nonusers of P2P payments saying they have not tried the service due to these concerns declining from 29% in 2015 to 21% in 2016. 

Digital wallet adoption is growing at a slow but steady rate, with 13% of consumers indicating they have used a digital wallet in the last 30 days, up from 11% in 2015 and 8% in 2014, according to a prior Fiserv survey. 15% of consumers said they had used a digital wallet in the past year. Younger consumers are also more interested in faster payments, with 93% of Millennials and 85% of Gen Xers saying that it is at least somewhat important that the payments they make are delivered in real-time, compared to 76% of the overall population.