Opinion poll
Paying via smartphone is slowly becoming less niche
Smartphone instead of wallet, smartwatch instead of credit card: many people already use mobile payment options. But there is also still plenty of skepticism.
Despite increasing usage figures, cashless payments with smartphones or smartwatches are still the exception at Germany’s checkouts. Cash, debit cards such as the Girocard or credit cards are used much more frequently, as a Forsa survey of 1,833 adults commissioned by the credit card provider Visa showed.
According to data collected in September of this year, a total of 32 percent of respondents now use their smartphone or smartwatch frequently or at least occasionally to pay for goods or services in the store. According to Visa, that is nine percentage points more than a year earlier. In the 2019 survey it was only 6 percent.
The Central European boss of the credit card provider Visa, Albrecht Kiel, sees this as a positive trend for mobile payment: “In just a few years, the smartphone has developed into a widely used means of payment.” This also increases consumers’ expectations of retailers. According to the survey, a good two thirds (69 percent) consider shops that only accept cash payments to be outdated.
However, the group of people who do not use mobile payment methods is also large: 64 percent say they never use a smartphone to pay, and 89 percent never use a smartwatch. The skeptics’ most important arguments: They see no advantage in mobile payment or have security concerns.
dpa
Source: Stern
