Mobile Wallets Emerge as Bill Pay Power Tool

Mobile wallets provide convenience and speed, and consumers are using them to pay bills, even though kinks still need to be ironed out.

Such cash flow management solutions are in high demand during the almost-recession of the past 18 months, and mobile wallets are proving to be strong in bill pay use cases, despite some frictions in using them.

“Digital Bill Payments: Frequent Mobile Wallet Bill Pay Users the Most Satisfied,” a PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration, asked more than 2,100 consumers about their digital wallet experiences of the past year and found satisfaction among users.

The study noted that 89% of mobile wallet bill pay users are at least somewhat satisfied with the experience of paying bills using a mobile wallet, and 61% reported being very or extremely satisfied. Most of those users are bridge millennials (39%) and millennials (38%), who frequently use mobile wallets to pay bills. Overall, 23% of consumers used mobile wallets to pay bills at least weekly.

A key takeaway on the bill pay aspects of mobile wallets is the number of consumers who use them with some urgency, such as when paying a bill on its due date or paying late.

The study found that consumers “who used a mobile wallet to pay a bill on the due date and those who used one when running late on payments reported higher satisfaction levels than the average mobile wallet bill pay user,” with 68% of those who used mobile wallet bill pay to make payments on a bill’s due date reporting high satisfaction, as did 77% of those who used mobile wallet bill pay to pay overdue bills. In both cases, satisfaction was higher than average.

Satisfaction is highest among frequent users who have tapped into a mobile wallet bill pay superpower: the ability to consolidate bills and pay them in one place.

“The bills consumers pay the most often using a mobile wallet include those for a mobile phone, credit card and home internet,” the study found. “Consumers report high satisfaction with these experiences, possibly owing to the ability to pay routine bills quickly and smoothly. Forty percent of consumers paid mobile phone bills, and 72% of these consumers were highly satisfied. Forty percent paid credit card bills, with 66% saying they were highly satisfied. One-third paid for home internet using a mobile wallet, with 75% saying they were highly satisfied.”

Friction With Mobile Wallets

With the generally strong levels of satisfaction among digital wallet users, consumers still report friction with this payment method. While 71% of consumers who used mobile wallets to pay bills at least weekly experienced at least one issue in the last year, that should be viewed in context as one issue in 52 weeks is still a strong showing.

PYMNTS found that 37% of those surveyed experienced operational issues, and 22% experienced security-related issues. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the more one uses digital wallets, the more one reports friction. For example, 59% of bill pay users paying more than five different bills experienced difficulties, compared to 48% of those who paid just one type of bill.

However, the fact that consumers continue using digital wallets for bill pay despite some friction reveals that people like this form of managing their cash flow and will bear the occasional annoyance for the larger benefit being derived.