More Mobile Phone Users Report Having Made Mobile Payments

April 2, 2015

This article is included in these additional categories:

African-American | Boomers & Older | Digital | Financial Services | Hispanic | Household Income | Men | Mobile Phone | Youth & Gen X

FedReserve-Use-Mobile-Payments-by-Age-Group-Apr2015Some 22% of mobile phone users surveyed in 2014 by the Federal Reserve report having made a mobile payment at some point during the prior 12 months, up from 17% the prior year, according to the agency’s 4th annual study [pdf] of mobile financial services. Among mobile phone users, the 18-29 (34%) and 30-44 (31%) age groups proved most likely to have used mobile payments, as did Black non-Hispanics (34%) and Hispanics (32%).

The most common mobile payment tasks among smartphone users who identified as payment users were:

  • Paying bills online through a mobile web browser or app (19%);
  • Making an online or in-app purchase (16%); and
  • Paying for a product or service at a store (11%).

For those not using mobile payments, the most oft-cited reasons were a greater ease in paying with cash or credit cards (75%), not seeing any benefits to using mobile payments (59%) and concern about the security of those payments (59%).

What does research say about marketing financial services to Millennials? Find out here.

Meanwhile, the use of mobile banking also grew on a year-over-year basis, although it surprisingly stalled among the youngest age group. Overall, 39% of respondents with a mobile phone and a bank account reported using mobile banking during the 12 months prior to the survey, up from 33% in the 2013 survey. While the percentage of 30-44-year-olds using mobile banking grew quickly (from 43% to 54%), the share of respondents aged 20-29 using them actually declined slightly, from 63% to 60%.

Hispanics (53%) continued to show above-average rates of mobile banking adoption, as did black non-Hispanics (43%).

Among mobile banking users, the following activities were the most commonly performed during the prior 12 months:

  • Checking an account balance or recent transactions (94%);
  • Downloading the bank’s mobile banking app on their mobile phone (71%);
  • Transferring money between bank accounts; and
  • Receiving an alert from the bank (57%).

As with mobile payments, those not using mobile banking most commonly cited a lack of reason to do so and concerns over its security.

Highlights from other recent mobile finance studies are listed below.

  • Almost one-quarter of US smartphone bank app users would pay $3 per month to use their bank’s mobile app, according to an SNL Financial survey.
  • Some 85% of iPhone 6 users had never tried Apple Pay as of March 2015, down from 91% in November 2014, per survey results from InfoScout and PYMNTS.com. A separate survey from Baird Equity Research (reported here by MediaPost) comes to a very different conclusion, estimating that 40% of iPhone 6 owners have tried Apple Pay. Yet another survey, from Phoenix Marketing International (PMI), finds that two-thirds of iPhone 6 owners have set up the wallet, but that two-thirds of users encountered problems at checkout.
  • An earlier study from PMI indicates that there are more than 15 million households in the US who qualify as mP2P consumers. These consumers: are avid users of mobile devices for financial services and payments; own smartphones; have downloaded a mobile app from their primary bank; and have engaged in person-to-person payments. They tend to be affluent, educated, and are 300% more likely to be business owners. Notably, two-thirds are aged 33 or older.
  • Adult users of digital payment services (outside of PayPal) tend to be young, says GfK MRI, noting that they have a median age of 36. Men comprise 54% of the digital payment user market, while 25-34-year-olds account for 30% of users.

About the Data: The Federal Reserve data is based on a survey of 2,925 US adults (18+) fielded by GfK from December 5-21, 2014.

Chart-Library-Ad-1

Explore More Articles.

Which Skills Are Important in RevOps?

Which Skills Are Important in RevOps?

9 in 10 RevOps professionals view data analysis skills as being important, a high percentage also don’t believe they need this skill for their job.

Marketing Charts Logo

Stay on the cutting edge of marketing.

Sign up for our free newsletter.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This