Some 80% of consumers think online credit card payments are unsafe
Privacy concerns are still the chief barrier to online spending with credit cards for consumers, with more than half of those polled saying that they are afraid of third parties intercepting or stealing their personal details. Providing different payment options could potentially boost online spending by as much as USD109.8bn, according to the survey of more than 2,000 US adults. This will come as welcome news for the slew of ‘cardless’ mobile wallet services coming to market from the likes of Google and PayPal, who are looking to profit from this
Although 95% of those surveyed have mobile phones, more than 30% of these consumers say that they are afraid of sharing financial information using their devices. More interestingly, just 36% say that they currently use their smartphones to make payments, with the figures just the latest indication that consumer adoption of mobile payment technology are still a number of years off, despite the investor hype surrounding the sector.
With nearly 40% saying that they dislike the idea of sharing private information with any third party at all, payments firms will still need to spend some time convincing consumers that they can provide adequate security protection, if the technology is ever to hit the mainstream. The stats show that slow progress is being made in winning over consumers to mobile payments, with just 13% of those polled in a YouGov survey in August saying that they would be willing to make a payment using their smartphones.
A little more than half of those surveyed say that they are afraid their details will be sold to other companies, while 51% believe their banking details will be intercepted or accessed by hackers. The report also flags up the success of payment structures such as Apple’s App Store, which requires users to input credit card details just once and then authorise payments on the site using a password. At least apart of these systems’ success is being attributed to the reduced number of clicks, also know as the ‘pain’ or ‘friction’ point, required to process a payment.
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