Mass adoption of mobile payments, NFC and contactless technology is still at least five years out, according to new research from financial technology Compass Plus.
The findings, which are based on a survey of 190 payments and banking experts around the world, suggest a significant decrease in expectations since 2011, when respondents said mobile payments would be mainstream by 2013 or 2014.
"By looking at the results from the 2011 and 2012 research, whose results stated mainstream penetration would occur within two to three years and one to two years consecutively, we should already have reached a state of mass adoption," Compass said. "However, in the most recent set of results, industry expectations have been pushed back further to 2020."
One big slowdown in penetration expectations is around contactless payments, according to Compass. In 2011, the majority vote was the mass adoption would have been reached within two years (29%). But this year, respondents' majority vote (41.5%) said mass adoption would occur within five years – seven years behind the original estimate.
"It is easy to get excited when new payments technology is introduced," Compass Plus Executive Vice President Maria Nottingham said. "However, experience has shown that no one payment channel becomes mainstream immediately. To truly reach a state of mass adoption, consumers need to be on board. It is clear that current approaches to mobile payments are lacking in the versatility that the other methods offer, and this is something that needs to be addressed."
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