24/05/2011

By Scott Thompson

Forty two per cent of smartphone users are keen to use their mobile as their wallet, according to a recent online consumer survey. The YouGov survey was conducted on behalf of Intelligent Environments (IE), a digital banking provider and part of the Parseq Group.

It found that male smartphone users are more likely to want to swipe their phone to make a payment (47 per cent) while over a third of female smartphone users (37 per cent) are also interested. iPhone users are most inclined to use their phone as a wallet with 56 per cent saying they would like to ‘wave and pay’ while 42 per cent of BlackBerry users and 40 per cent Android smartphone users would like this option as well.

James Richards, head of mobile at Intelligent Environments, says: “These statistics provide important guidance to banks embarking on their mobile strategy and demonstrate that there is a need to consider developing apps for numerous mobile platforms. Proving the business case is often the biggest barrier to investment in innovation like mobile banking but these figures show that consumer demand is strong in the UK market.”

The survey also revealed that smartphone penetration has reached a third of British adults, with Android phones edging out the iPhone to become the most popular smartphone in the UK (28 per cent vs. 26 per cent).