Consumer Impact on Consumer Payments, Money2020 2014

Last week GiftCard Partners senior management attended Money 20/20, the biggest industry event surrounding payments and payment technology. The team learned quite a bit on the trip about what the latest technology could mean for how consumers pay for goods. A study released by
Accenture, put an interesting spin on payments that can sometimes can get lost in the latest technology and the cutting edge applications: the consumer perspective. The ongoing challenge in the consumer payments industry has been consumer confidence and adoption. Every wallet, app and mobile device is useless if consumers aren't willing to put their personal information in and use the technology. In the Accenture
survey of over 4,000 North American consumers, they expect to use traditional consumer payments methods like cash and credit 66% of the time, but that drops to only 54% by 2020. While the number is modest, it shows a trend over time that indicates consumer adoption is trending the way of mobile and virtual payment options. The survey results also indicate that although there are the typical fears about security, consumers are also interested in payments choices. Consumer choice overcoming consumer trepidation is the ultimate formula to real mobile and virtual payment adoption. Consumer impact is the only thing that will allow the consumer payments industry to truly turn the corner.