Mobile payments poised to grow in the UK as attitudes soften
The popularity of contactless payments continues unabated with figures released from MasterCard showing one quarter of UK consumers intending to use their mobile phone to make a payment within the next year. This study, following the launch of Android Pay earlier in May, also discovered that 1 in 20 consumers make mobile contactless payments once a week or more and this usage looks set to increase. In line with increasing numbers of smartphones with this feature, 13% of consumers have no fears about using this payment method; however 65% expressed concerns about the theft of their phone and it being used to make unauthorised transactions. MasterCard responded by stating that fingerprint identification, tokenisation and fraud protection policies would mitigate these fears.

One quarter of British consumers intend to use their mobile to make contactless payments in the next 12 months, according to figures released by MasterCard.



The research, conducted following the launch of Android Pay in the UK earlier this month, found that one in 20 people are already using contactless mobile payments once a week or more.



With more smartphones now carrying the technology, the poll revealed that 13 per cent of British consumers have no reservations at all about using it. The most common fear amongst consumers was losing their device, with 65 per cent worrying that if it fell into the wrong hands someone else could use their details to make purchases.



However, MasterCard noted that features such as tokenisation in the payments process, fraud protection policies on credit cards and fingerprint identification on iPhone models, meant that such fears were often unfounded.



Elliott Goldenberg, head of digital payments at MasterCard UK & Ireland, added: “Mobile phones offer people the means to make contactless payments over £30 because the user can be verified, for example by means of their fingerprint. The other key difference is the use of digital tokens – in short, your card details aren’t passed onto the retailer because they are not stored on the phone in the first place. As consumers increasingly recognise these benefits, mobile payments will begin to see the kind of growth that contactless has had over the last two years.”

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