Millennial Boost For Mobile Payments?

Millennials are far more interested in starting their own businesses than climbing the corporate ladder, and that may drive new payments technologies over the next few decades, Mobile Commerce Daily reported.

Those born after 1980 will make up 75 percent of the American workforce by 2025, but only 13 percent have a career goal of becoming a CEO or company president, according to a study released in November by Bentley University. However, 66 percent want to start and run their own businesses.

In a separate Deloitte study, 70 percent of millennials would reject traditional business to work independently. About 20 percent said they wanted to quit their jobs and start their own businesses — and among those who did, 90 percent were optimistic about their business prospects and half were successful enough to hire new employees in 2014.

Millennial-launched retail businesses are likely to go straight to mobile point-of-sale and payments, both because they don’t have legacy systems and because millennials have grown up with mobile technology.

“Millennials have to a large degree grown up with mobile, making this generation more likely to adapt to behaviors that involve using their mobile device,” said Chuck Martin, CEO of the Mobile Future Institute. “They are more likely to be open to paying with their phone and even paying in-aisle, negating the need to involve a checkout cashier. As this behavior migrates, retailers will have to be ready to adapt to this generation.”