Millennials fuel increasing usage of mobile payment systems

Apple's fiscal Q1 earnings report showed a 500% increase in Apple Pay transactions year-over-year. Since Apple gets a slice of every transaction, this is a big deal financially. Besides Apple Pay, other mobile payment services are seeing a rise in usage. Scott Blum, VP at Total Merchant Services, gives credit to the millennials for this. Making up one quarter of the U.S. population, Blum predicts that this generation will lead the way as credit cards become obsolete, replaced by the mobile wallet.

As typically occurs with new technology, there are those who would prefer to use the old methods. According to the 2016 North American Consumer Digital Payments Survey conducted by Accenture, "…consumers are still relying largely on traditional payments methods despite the availability of reliable digital payments providers." The same report noted that 56% of consumers are aware that they can make payments using their smartphone.

The Accenture survey points out three major trends that are taking shape in the mobile payments industry. One, this form of payment is becoming mainstream. Two, most consumers using digital payments trust their traditional credit card providers when deciding which digital card to use. And third, millennials and mass affluents are the groups that are ahead of the pack in using mobile payment technology. 35% of these two groups use their phone to make payments online, compared to the 23% of other consumers that pay with their handset.


Those who have yet to use a mobile wallet say that plastic credit and debit cards already do the job. Consumers thinking "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," will need a specific reason to use a digital wallet. And figuring out what this reason is will be keeping Apple, Google, Samsung, LG and others hard at work.

source: Accenture via Forbes