Mobile Payments Cannot Forget The Customer

When it comes to mobile payments technology you can say that technology has evolved a lot in the last couple of years. You can now make mobile online payments, contactless payments and even mobile money transfers. But are people actually doing it?

The UK newspaper The Guardian recently hosted the Guardian Mobile Business Summit and spoke to some of the leaders of the industry in Europe. What seemed to come out of the conversation is that there is a lot of new technology out there, but not a lot is being done to understand the needs of those who use it. “There’s a new launch every week, which is exciting, but we’re literally in danger of leaving the consumer behind” said Eden Zoller, analyst at Ovum during a panel session on mobile payments. “Mobile payments are pretty much off-the-radar for most consumers, or usage is very low and it’s not habitual.”

According to Ovum’s research, out of 7,000 people in 11 different countries who use mobile applications less than 1% use mobile wallets regularly. Zoller blames it on a lack of information and advertising, “We need to tell people about this stuff, make them aware that it’s actually there, and convince them that it’s more convenient, it’s easier, and that it gives value compared to the existing payment mechanisms that they have. We need to do all this, we’re not doing it very well, and instead we’re just confusing them… For the consumer, this is doing their head in.”

The panel also welcomed the director of Weve, project Oscar’s recently renamed mobile money venture. Tony Moretta too was critical of the amount of launches and products out there compared to the number of people actually using them. He also criticized mobile money services for forgetting the consumer when designing a product, “Even when they work, they don’t replicate what consumers want to do. It doesn’t really matter what you come up with as the technology: you have to convince consumers that it’s easy to use, secure and it’s going to be accepted everywhere.”

The key word at the conference was simplicity. The customer needs to feel like these new technologies are simple and easy to use; that there is actually an advantage in using a new product. “”Ease of use is critical in this,” Steward Roberts, the managing director for iZettle said. “You’ve got to have simplicity. If it’s difficult, [people think] ‘I’ll do it the old way’.”

It seems that mobile money providers need to remember whom they are creating this new technology for: their users.