Among (The Few) M-Pay Users, NFC Is Popular

NFC is not quite the method of mobile payments most users are most familiar.  That honor still goes to the QR code or barcode which 45 percent of reported mobile users said they had experienced at least once, according to the latest report by Nielsen, reports The Wall Street Journal.   The ground, however maybe starting to shift toward NFC however–as 37 percent of users reported using NFC.

Scanning a card reader at the POS came in third at 29 percent, while using mPos systems like Square ranked fourth at 24 percent. Rounding out the list was P2P transfer services (such as those that allow users to split a check in a restaurant) which represented 22 percent.

Those figures varied some depending on the type of mobile device, phones generally led as the preferred mobile payment system. The exception to that was for P2P transfers, where users showed some preference for tablets.

Mobile payments platforms, such as Google Wallet, are also gaining increased presence in the mind of consumers and potential users, but so far that has not led to any spectacular ignition of the payment method.  As of the release of Apple Pay less than 10 percent of merchants have NFC readers necessary to make the platform work.

According to separate research reported on by The Journal, the barriers to mobile adoption remain concerns about security, convenience and consumers already ingrained payment habits.