Rating: 80 % of contactless bank card owners don’t use facility
The latest research from YouGov‘s Mobile Wallet survey reckons that banks and retailers need to do more in order to increase usage of NFC (Near field communication) /contactless technology. It has found that just 12 per cent of the British population believe they own a contactless card. GoMo News makes that around 7.46 million people. Yet, according to the UK Cards Association, there were 19.6 million active cards in the UK in November. So that’s very roughly 12 million people wandering unaware they possess a contactless card, we estimate. However, we suspect that the contactless industry itself needs to do more to educate consumers.
Not once in this study briefing is an NFC enabled smartphone handset or manufacturer named.
So part of the problem could easily be that there are Nokia C7 owners out there blissfully unaware of their handsets’ NFC capabilities.
In another dig at UK retailers, YouGov reveals that just eight per cent of the British population and 13 per cent of contactless card owners recognise the McDonalds burger chain as a ‘wave and pay’ provider – the most recognised outlet in its findings.
The study adds that consumer’s awareness levels into retailers providing the technology remains incredibly low.
Results indicate that educating consumers about contactless technology remains key in increasing awareness and adoption rates.
Let’s look at what the banks have achieved so far. Barclays/Barclaycard has a considerable share of the market – 71 per cent of contactless card owners own a Barclays card with contactless technology.
Consequently, Barclays has the highest awareness levels. The next highest competitor is MBNA (10 per cent), followed by Lloyds TSB (5 per cent) amongst contactless card owners.
GoMo News remembers which Barclays ads promote contactless technology but doesn’t recall seeing anything about such technology in Lloyds’ train adverts. A bit of a clue.
Yet 80 per cent of owners of contactless card admitted that they had not made a single contactless transaction and only five per cent make one over once a week.
Russell Feldman, associate director in YouGov’s Technology and Telecom’s team commented,” Feldman continued “It is up to the banks and other financial institutions to help educate the consumer in the technology, its benefits, and allaying any security fears.”
He then says, “Retailers also need to make the public aware that they accept the technology and that paying with contactless cards can speed up the payment process.”
“Retailers who do not offer the technology could potentially be missing out on reducing queue times and gaining more foot fall – something retailers desperately need in the current climate,” Feldman warns.
There’s no mention of Nokia, for example, failing to make any dent on consumer awareness and promoting the inclusion of NFC technology inside some of its handsets.
The most popular venues for contactless usage are fast food restaurants (27 per cent); coffee shops (26 per cent); and sandwich and grocery shops (26 per cent).
Hence, Feldman concludes that, “As expected, more and more retailers are hopping on-board the contactless bus with McDonalds and Starbucks being some of the bigger names.”
This research is taken from the third wave of research which took place in November 2011. The next wave is due in February 2012 with a report scheduled in March 2012.
There’s no mention of how much it would cost to get your hands on this research but one of the topics covered is NFC/mobile wallet awareness levels (including recognition levels for suppliers/handsets and vendors).
What we think
Instead of just blaming retailers for the obvious lack of contactless technology awareness amongst consumers, we believe the whole ecosystem should get together and promote it.
In fact, what we need is for McDonalds, Barclays and Nokia to get together and create ads showing NFC in action right now. Not as some kind of futuristic concept.
