Will Mobile Payments Have Slow Adoption In The US?

Based on a recent survey, people are concerned about privacy.

 
Mobile payments have been in the news this week as reports of various organizations are talking about rolling out mobile payments through the use of your smart phone. More phones are beginning to arrive with NFC (Near Field Communication) chips contained in them. Rumors have the coming iPhone 5 as containing the NFC chip. In the US, that means that by the end of the 3rd quarter, the majority of new smart phones will contain NFC chips for utilizing mobile payments. One of the big players in this was believed to be Google and their Google Wallet which has been in the news with the Galaxy Nexus and Verizon conflict. Unfortunately, things have slowed down and competition from Isis which has the support of several wireless carriers here in the US is causing confusion as to who is the leader. There are all the competing methods and some fighting to stop them in the European Union.

We talked about mobile payments being part of your strategy as it looks like 2012 is going to be the year we finally see wide spread roll out into the market. Credit card companies are also embedding chips in the cards for mobile payments as well. There are growing signs that it is going to happen in the US and around the world as well. So, why have we not been seeing a faster adoption rate here in the US? There may be an answer to that question as a result of a recent survey done by the University of California at Berkeley.

It would appear that the idea of tracking someone's purchasing habits or location are becoming an obstacle to the adoption of mobile payments. We all remember the big uproar when it was revealed that some wireless carriers here in the US were tracking people's actual location via cell towers. People like their privacy. You then add in all the hacking which has been done over the past year exposing names, address information, emails and other personal information. People here in the US are sensitive to the potential exposure of more information through the use of mobile payment systems used via smart phones.

We found that Americans overwhelmingly oppose the revelation of
contact information (phone number, email address, and home
address) to merchants when making purchases with mobile payment
systems. Furthermore, an even higher level of opposition exists to
systems that track consumers’ movements through their mobile
phones

While this survey was actually sponsored by Nokia, there is apparently valuable information here which those wanting to handle mobile payments need to pay attention to. There are a large number of benefits from moving to mobile payment systems and predictions of them replacing the use of currency have been circulating. But, it is the idea that some company or marketer may know your buying habits or movements through the use of mobile payments is an issue. This is what has people very concerned about this coming change in technology.

We are bombarded with phone calls from people trying to sell you something, get you to take a survey or donate money to some cause that has people weary of other intrusions. These are on our home phones. Since mobile payments via your smart phone provides the people handling the processing of information access to personal information, such as your mobile phone number, it has many concerned. I have tried to not give out my cell phone number because I do not want to get the same type of calls I get at home. I do not need someone calling my cell phone asking me to take a survey. And that is the potential with all the personal information which is potentially exposed each time that you make a purchase.

Existing "Do Not Call" lists do not stop this potential because of the "existing relationship" loop hole in the law. While I want to take full advantage of mobile payments once things become more widespread here in the US, my concerns about my privacy are something I worry about. There are probably a lot more people who are more than concerned and will hesitate to make a decision to use NFC as a payment method using their smart phone. The privacy issues have not been talked about much and we can hope that this recent survey raises this topic up and is addressed.

You can download the UC Berkeley report and read it for yourself.

Are you concerned about possible exposure of personal information through the use of mobile payments on your smart phone?