Trust and familiarity are the key drivers in consumer preference for mobile payment services, according to a new study.
The survey by market research agency GfK NOP found that mobile and telecommunication brands were the least trusting brand category when it comes to controlling financial transactions measuring at only 10 per cent.
Within these brands, mobile network carriers have the highest levels of trust, consideration and preference, although still lag behind financial brands.
Within this category, mobile network carriers have the highest levels of trust, consideration and preference out of all the mobile brands, but they are still quite far behind financial brands. Adoption scores for network carriers, mobile handset and OS providers do, however, see significant uplift among smart phone owners, younger consumers and early tech adopters.
At brand level, PayPal, Nokia and Apple came out as the most trusted brands.
“We tested. PayPal has experience in delivering remote mobile payment services to consumers and boasts high levels of trust and consideration. Most interestingly, it has the highest brand preference of all those tested in this research. At a global level, trust usually drives mobile payment service preference,” GfK NOP said.
“However, for PayPal, the drivers are completely different. The fact that consumers have already used PayPal to send or receive remote mobile payments before drives consumer preference for the brand when it comes to proximity based mobile payments.”
According to the survey, 30 per cent said they use Paypal’s remote service because they are familiar with the brand, which is closely followed by 21 per cent who say PayPal is deemed a specialist in processing payments generally. Also, 17 per cent said trust remains important for PayPal, but is only the third most important stated purchase driver.
Nokia in China is among the most trusted brands of any category in the research, receiving a score of 38 per cent, which is much higher than its global average of 14 per cent. The reason for this level of Chinese consumer preference is because Nokia has delivered reliable mobile solutions to a large proportion of China..
Apple also has a very strong brand and this has driven higher levels of trust among their existing customer base raising their global trust average of 11 per cent to 38 per cent among iPhone owners.
"Creating a mobile payment service that consumers are comfortable adopting means leveraging the trust placed in financial brands, but it is also vital to have a presence in the mobile sector,” Ryan Garner, GfK Technology director, said.
The study surveyed 8,603 online users across nine countries including the , UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, South Korea, Brazil and China.