News

Study: Vantiv profiles the 'omniconsumer' of the future

October 1, 2013

Payment processing services provider Vantiv Inc. has released a new primary research study on the impact of omnicommerce and mobile banking trends on consumers between 18 and 34 years of age.

Each year Vantiv and its research partner Mercator Advisory Group conduct primary research on payment trends. A cross-section of U.S. consumers are asked details about how they make payments currently and how they expect to do so in the future.

"Our newest research study regarding omnicommerce shows that the omniconsumer continues to have high expectations for mobile payments," said Moira Tamayo, SVP of marketing at Vantiv. "That segment, especially the Millennial generation, is a demographic that cannot be ignored."

In a recent webinar, Dean Seifert, SVP of product strategy at Vantiv; Ken Paterson, head of research operations at Mercator Advisory Group; and Lorena Harris, VP of corporate marketing at Vantiv, discussed the research findings, which revealed the following trends:

Omnicommerce and mobile payments

• Consumers are becoming increasingly mobile; 56 percent of respondents own a smart phone (up 11 percent from last year) and 27 percent own a tablet (up 15 percent from last year).
• Among Gen Y (Millennial) consumers, smartphone and tablet ownership levels are much higher, at 78 percent and 34 percent respectively.
• Consumers spend an average of 15 minutes using a mobile device for shopping-related activities while in-store.
• One-third of consumers said they are more willing to use mobile payments technologies if they offer rewards similar to today's credit cards.
• Within the segment of consumers that download mobile apps, 71 percent said they want to use their smartphone to pay at the register.
• Among young consumers, 22 percent expect mobile payments to be their preferred method for paying in restaurants by 2018. This compares with 13 percent of consumers in general.
• Younger consumers are 11 percent more likely than other demographic groups to consider mobile payments convenient and prefer them over credit and debit cards.
• While awareness of NFC-based payments technology has increased 9 percent in the past year, interest in using has declined by 13 percent.
• More than half of respondents (52 percent) said security concerns are behind their lack of interest in using mobile payments technologies. Of that group, the most concerned demographic group is those 18-34 years old.

Mobile banking and prepaid

• Among all consumers, mobile banking activity increased from 16 percent to 24 percent year-over-year; among younger consumers it increased from 36 percent to 44 percent.
• Young consumers are the group most likely to have purchased a prepaid card in the previous year. They are especially interested in general purpose reloadable cards; 29 percent of young adults said they buy them, compared to 19 percent of those 35–64 years old and just 3 percent of seniors.
• Despite a digital preference, Gen Y represents the highest percentage (60 percent) of high volume ATM, branch and call center users.

The full research paper and webinar are available at the Vantiv website.

Read more about trends and statistics.