Mobile payments go mainstream within 4 years, KPMG survey predicts

The use of a mobile phone or a device to make payments or conduct banking transactions will require four years to become widely accepted by consumers, according to global survey of business executives by KPMG International.

The survey called 2011 KPMG Mobile Payments Outlook, which interviews nearly 1,000 executives in primarily the financial services, technology, telecommunications, and retail industries globally found that 83 percent of the respondents believe that mobile payments will be mainstream within four years, compared to only 9 percent who see them as mainstream today.

In fact, 46 percent believe mobile payments will be mainstream within two years.

“We believe that the accelerated adoption of smartphones and other mobile devices (e.g. tablets) as well as the convenience of using these devices whenever and wherever open up a myriad of opportunities that will drive mobile payments at a much faster rate than our respondents anticipate,” said Mihai Rada, Director Management Consulting in KPMG Romania

“Despite the relatively low adoption of the mobile payments deployed in the Romanian market starting early 2000’s, we consider that there is good potential for new business models and supporting technologies to be deployed. A wide variety of payments solutions is ready for adoption and interest among consumers in using mobile payments is growing, in line with the industry’s readiness to deploy them.”

The KPMG Report discovers that while there is consensus about the significant value of this opportunity among executives across geographies and industries, the type and size of opportunity varies between developed and developing countries depending on depth and reach of the financial infrastructure in place. “We believe that those firms willing to engage in cross-industry partnerships and ‘ co-opetition’ are more likely to succeed and dominate the market due to the complex set of business relationships required to deliver mobile payments to a mass market,” said Aurelia Costache, Partner Management Consulting in KPMG Romania.

Read here a Business Review article on mobile payment.