Canadians To Mobile Innovators: Bring It On!

Paying with a smartphone is fine with Canadians, but a new PayPal Canada survey suggests many of them are ready to go way beyond something like Apple Pay, Chain Store Age reported.

According to the survey conducted by Nielsen, 29 percent of Canadians reported already having used a mobile phone to make an online purchase, and 23 percent said they have made a purchase in-store using their phone. Another 59 percent said they feel envious when they see others paying with their phones in-store, and wish they could do the same.

Almost half — 47 percent — said they want retailers offered more safe and secure mobile payment options.

But smartphones are apparently just the tip of the in-store payment iceberg for Canadian consumers: 23 percent said they would be likely to use a watch or bracelet that lets them pay for in-store purchases, while 12 percent would consider paying using Internet-enabled glasses such as Google Glass.

And 22 percent reported that they would be willing to use facial recognition technology or a retina scanner to buy items in a store.

But that’s still not as far as some Canadians will go to make payments: 18 percent of survey respondents said they would be likely to use a chip implanted in a finger that would allow them to simply tap to complete an in-store payment.