Survey Reveals Google Wallet Likely to Be Top Pick for Mobile Payment

A recent survey released by ACI Worldwide reveals that the retail industry is bracing for transition as mobile payments, EMV migration deadlines and questions over PCI data security standards dominate industry conversation. The survey, which polled attendees of the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 2013 annual conference (“Retail’s Big Show”), sought to identify key trends affecting the retail segment. Among the findings, ACI found that:

 

 

According to survey respondents, Google is believed to be the most likely to win the “mobile wallet war.” While more than half (53%) believe Google will prevail, an additional 25% believe PayPal will come out on top, while only 4% expect ISIS to edge out the market competition. Interestingly, nearly one in five respondents (19%) believes a new market entrant could gain traction in this emerging segment.

 

Interestingly, nearly a third (32%) of those surveyed expect the entrance of new mobile wallet providers to be the market development that will most impact retailers over the next 12-18 months (as opposed to U.S. EMV migration, PCI data security standards, and increased implementation of contactless POS terminals).

 

According to ACI’s survey, 83% of those surveyed expect the rate of implementation of contactless POS terminals to increase or significantly increase, as compared to 2012; a sign that mobile payment acceptance will continue to grow in 2013.

 

However, despite this prevailing sentiment, the industry believes there are still barriers to overcome in implementing a mobile payments strategy. The majority of respondents (44%) believe that the greatest barrier to entry for retailers when seeking to receive mobile payments is the lack of common standards for payments. Twenty-five percent believe the greatest barrier is the building of a POS infrastructure, while 17% note the costs of implementation. An additional 13% felt that it was the lack of consumer devices offering NFC that most inhibited retailers from receiving contactless payments.

 

When asked what the biggest risk to retailers was when it came to implementing a mobile payments strategy, an overwhelming majority of respondents (68%) believed the answer was customer privacy protection (43%) and increased instance of fraud (25%). Nearly one-in-four (24%) identified concerns over diminished customer contact and relationship as the biggest risk.

 

According to the survey, nearly a quarter of those polled (23%) felt PCI Data Security Standards would most impact retailers over the next year to year and a half - an interesting point, given that the prevailing sentiment was that retailers are not compliant with current standards. According to the data collected, only 36% of respondents believe the retail industry is compliant. Contrastingly, 63% believe retailers are only somewhat or not at all compliant.

 

When asked to identify what would most impact retailers over the next 12-18 months, 28% of respondents believed it would be the United States’ EMV migration. In a follow-up, when asked to identify how prepared retailers are to meet upcoming 2013 and 2014 EMV migration deadlines in the U.S., a majority (56%) indicated that retailers were either “unprepared” or “very unprepared” to meet the deadlines. Forty-two percent believe retailers are “prepared” while only 2% felt retailers were “very prepared.”