Posted May 28, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a keen awareness of the need for enhancing personal practices to prevent the spread of the virus. The CDC has encouraged social distancing, face-mask wearing, frequent hand washing and sanitizing, and daily surface cleaning and disinfecting. When it comes to people buying things in person, it is that last guideline that has sparked widespread discussion about whether one type of payment method is safer than another.
Some stakeholders have been promoting contactless transactions as the most hygienic method of in-person payment. The consumer can perform such transactions with a minimal amount of contact with a payment terminal, either through a mobile pay wallet application or a contactless payment card—as long as the merchant has enabled the payment terminals with near-field communications technology. This post will focus on mobile contactless payments that began in the United States in late 2014, with the introduction of the Apple Pay digital wallet, followed shortly by the Google and Samsung pay wallets. Thus far, consumer use of mobile digital wallets has been anemic. Some researchOff-site link has found that mobile payments represented only 3 percent of U.S. retail sales in 2019.
Financial inclusion is a particular concern for the Atlanta Fed. Past Take On Payments posts have discussed the state of un- and underbanked households in the United States and efforts to make financial services more readily available and affordable. The mobile phone—in particular, the smartphone—is a key part of inclusion. Smartphones allow access to secure, low-cost banking services. Given the recent promotion of mobile contactless payments, here are some recent statistics from the Pew Research CenterOff-site link on mobile phone ownership that I want to share with you.
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