Asia experienced the strongest growth in mobile payments this year to equal the proportion seen in North America, new figures have shown.

Mobile transactions in Asia rose by 58 per cent between August 2013 and August 2014, according to the latest Mobile Payments Index from technology company Adyen. M-payments now accounted for 17 per cent of total online payments made in the region, the same as the share recorded in North America.

The UK continued to lead m-commerce in Europe and globally, with mobile payments averaging 41 per cent of total online payments in Q3 2014, followed by the Netherlands and Spain at 26 per cent, France at 18 per cent and Germany at 16 per cent.

The index revealed that globally, authorisation rates for online payments were slightly higher on mobile devices than on desktops, at 88.1 per cent versus 86.7 per cent for the months of August and September. Furthermore, the proportion of transactions refused by banks on mobile devices was 1.5 percentage points lower than on desktops.

Customers also showed a preference for smartphones over tablets, found the study, with 57 per cent of total mobile payments between July and September made on a smartphone, compared with 43 per cent on a tablet.

Adyen noted that the share of smartphone transactions was continuing on an upward gradient globally, while tablet transactions appeared to be levelling out – a trend that could be down to the growing number of smartphones with larger screens.

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