Hispanic Millennials A Top Target For Mobile Wallet Players

The Hispanic Millennial Project has found some patterns in the use of mobile payments technologies among this demographic.

Reports on Friday (Sept. 2) said the research initiative revealed that Hispanic millennials, those aged 18–34, are embracing mobile payments technology. But there are other trends that emerge when the data is broken down even further.

For example, foreign-born Hispanic millennials are more interested than their U.S.-born peers in mobile payments technology, like Apple Wallet, 63 percent to 43 percent, respectively, according to reports. Analysts said this could be because U.S.-born Hispanic millennials may have already tried a technology. But foreign-born Hispanic millennials told researchers that they see mobile payments as a technology that fits their lifestyle.

“This sets up a tremendous opportunity for mobile wallet services to ‘speak’ to foreign-born Hispanic millennials and convert them to customers,” reports by MediaPost stated. “It also shows that banks could be doing a lot more for this segment — being first with their own mobile products that allow these consumers mobile pay, mobile deposit and many of the other benefits that open the doors to mobile banking.”

Not surprisingly, Hispanic millennials are more likely than their older counterparts to already use a mobile wallet. Hispanic millennials with more than $46,000 in household incomes have a 79 percent awareness of this technology, while those with lower household incomes have a 63 percent awareness. Researchers noted that this is likely to change as mobile wallets and mobile payments become more broadly accepted.

A study by Chadwick Martin Bailey released in early 2015 predicted that mobile wallet usage would spike in the U.S. in the year ahead, while mobile wallet usage doubled between 2013 and 2015, researchers found.