Merchants are more interested in making contactless payments work and rolling out solid point to point encryption strategies than actually embracing mobile payments, a study by payments consultant CMSpi.
When asked by CMSpi, merchants said that contactless and P2Pi were by far the most important considerations around mobile right now rather than m-commerce. Apple Pay failed to chart.
Respondents told CMSpi that their main consideration when it comes to mobile payments is security, and for something so fundamental, all mobile solutions are initially considered “guilty until proven innocent”. Therefore, even a mobile payment solution that is strong in all areas – security, cost, speed and customer information – will still take a long time to reach critical mass.
“We think this is because of the time it takes to gain the awareness and acceptance that it requires from both consumers and merchants,” says the report. “Merchants appear to view bank transfer apps and open-loop SIM based wallets as the most feasible mobile payment solutions to implement. However, according to our consultation, even these solutions have been explored by fewer than 50% of merchants.”
