03 Jul THE MOBILE FIRST GENERATION IS SHAPING THE WORLD OF PAYMENTS

Along with the increase of smartphones penetration on the market, mobile purchases are often replacing in-store transactions, as well as cash and physical cards, more often replaced by Mobile Payments. This is an international phenomenon that demonstrates how smartphones have become a crucial part of our daily life, impacting our purchasing habits.

But how are mobile payments really evolving?

Mobile in Europe

A study conducted by WeAreSocial in 2019 [1] – shows that on a population of 846 million people in Europe, the number of active mobile social media users is 47%, with higher percentages in countries such as Italy, where on a population of 59.2 million, the number of mobile social users is 31 million, 52% penetration.

The numbers are even more impressive talking about young generations: a study conducted by Vocalic [2] reports that 71% of Italian Millennials say they couldn’t live without a smartphone, along with 68% and 61% of their Dutch and British counterparts respectively, and the 54% in Germany. [3]

With smartphones, wearables, and apps that eliminate the need to carry cash or credit cards, it is easy to expect that mobile payments will further grow in the next few years. The study of WeAreSocial shows that the number of unique mobile users reached 5.1 billion in January 2019, and that in 2022 the Internet will be mobile only. [4] This confirms that companies and banks should be able to adapt to consumers’ habits and to the mobile world, by providing mobile friendly platforms and frictionless mobile payment solutions.

Mobile proximity payments

The year 2018 has seen the boom of innovative payments in more countries, including Italy where they have been growing at a rate of 56%, driven by proximity payments, Mobile Proximity Payments included. These payments have grown in Italy by 650%, with over 15,6 million transactions made in-store via smartphone, for an equivalent of 530 million euro, as reported by Osservatorio Mobile Payment & Commerce. [5] This show how omni-channel is the key, as customers now may start their purchase online and complete it at the store or the opposite, finding the physical product first, and paying then via mobile.

The importance of a mobile friendly solution

MyBank is an e-payment solution that supports payments made via mobile sites and app-to-app transactions, allowing the client to pay directly from their mobile banking in just a few clicks.

MyBank has also developed different solutions to support proximity payments and payments made via mobile, such as QR code payments and a pay-per-link solution – MyBank Bridge – which creates the bridge between merchants and payer, even when the merchant has no e-commerce platform. This shows how MyBank is a payment solution that perfectly fits the omni-channel world.

All these features make MyBank a frictionless mobile payment system, which helps companies operating online expand their businesses and follow the current payment trends.

[1] https://wearesocial.com/it/blog/2019/01/digital-in-2019

[2] Vocalink Research 2016: the Millennial Influence – How Millennials of Europe will shape tomorrow’s payment landscape.

[3] Mobile & Social commerce: come sta cambiando il customer journey crosschannel. Giulio Finzi, Senior Partner NETCOMM Services

[4] https://www.osservatori.net/it_it/osservatori/comunicati-stampa/mobile-payment-in-italia-crescita-pagamenti-innovativi