Juniper Research has released a new report which projects that the total value of global payments via mobile device will reach $507 billion this year. This will be a rise of nearly 40% year-on-year.
The report, titled ‘Mobile Payment Strategies: Remote, Contactless & Money Transfer 2014-2018’ found that growth would mainly be driven by increasing purchases of physical goods by mobile device with the average transaction size from tablets already exceeding that of PCs in many markets. Spending over smart phones has also increased but the study found that their primary function in retail is still as a search and discovery tool which informs and enables later purchase.
Mobile ticketing applications have also cause huge growth in the scale of digital transactions. Many metro and transit authorities in Europe and North America have implemented different mobile ticketing options which have seen widespread adoption by users.
The report also noted that on the other hand the progress in contactless and mobile payments has been comparatively slow. It did however argue that there is potential for it to take off in the medium term following the emergence of cloud-based secure element solutions and NFC opportunities.
The report also found that the opportunity for contactless mobile payments has been bolstered by increased contactless infrastructure deployments as many point of sale terminals now include contactless technology.
According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, “The prevalent business models for NFC have been unattractive to banks and left them dependent on multiple network operators, each of which may have its own approach to mobile wallet management. HCE (Host Card Emulation) solutions have the potential to revitalise a market which has struggled to gain traction.”
