The study points out that 10.4% of digital users (those Spaniards between 24-55 years that have made online purchasing or contactless payments in the store in the last 6 months) use their mobile to pay at a physical store, through NFC technology. These payments, which include paying contactless (tap & go) with their mobile devices at the point of sale terminal (tap and go POS), have increased by 4.2 percentage points compared to last year. In addition, they are the most known (63%) and the best valued (34.2%).

This modality is followed by the mobile payment with operator charge (8.3%) and the mobile payment with apps (5.2%). Both of them are known by 32% of researched users.NFC Mobile Payments

According to Paloma Real, Business Development & Innovation Manager for Spain & Portugal at MasterCard, “the fact that 20.8% of digital users already use their mobiles to pay, at any of their modalities, demonstrates how this means of payment is increasingly augmenting its relevance in the Spaniards shopping habits. The important effort made by financial entities and merchants to ease this technology among consumers has allowed keeping these numbers that will probably continue increasing in 2016, turning into the kick-off year for mobile payments in the market. Now the challenge is to broaden the knowledge and to work for the convergent experience, regardless of the device you use to pay.”

Despite the mobile payments’ growing numbers, the digital wallets are the most popular and used mobile payment method by the Spaniards digital users. Concretely, 75% of surveyed consumers have ever used a wallet application to make their online purchases. The reasons to use them are security (56%), speed (25%) and convenience (24%).

Another payment method which is opening up is the P2P (person to person) payments in Spain, which is known by 48.8% and used by 9% of surveyed users. Consumers use them to make purchases, send money and share expenses, around 6 times a year and with around 45 euros average ticket in each transaction.

Biometric Payment Solutions, an attractive option for consumers

One of the key factors for the success of these new means of payments is guaranteeing consumers that the security levels in the physical transactions are maintained, or are even increased. The constant innovation made in this field has driven to the implementation of biometric security payment solutions that allow the individual identification with their fingertip, the facial recognition or even their heart rhythm.

These solutions are being well embraced by consumers, justifying they are secure, according to 64% of surveyed. In fact, 41.5% of the surveyed users would choose a biometric identification solution when paying using their mobile.

“Thanks to the constant developments made in the payments industry, any connected device is a payment device. Hence, we have worked to translate security standards and authentication of physical world to the digital space to allow a more secure payment experience, through the biometric authentication”, Paloma Real asserts.

About the study

The study has been developed by Inmark Europe, leading company in financial sector market investigations, through more than 1,200 interviews to individuals of 24-55 years, economically active (with regular incomes), living in Spain, that have made online purchases or contactless payments in a physical store the last six months.