The majority (53%) of mobile industry leaders believe that improving customers' retail experience would be essential to creating a successful mobile payments scheme, according to SAP’s latest GSMA Mobile World Congress survey.
The survey is aimed at addressing top issues facing mobile commerce service providers and reflects the sentiments of mobile operators, fixed telecommunication providers, over-the-top (OTT) players and other global mobile industry executives.
Results show that potential methods for improving the retail experience include point-of-sale services such as NFC (28%), facilitating universal acceptance of mobile payments (25%), and location-based point-of-sale offerings (24%).
Less popular services included targeted offers based on consumer preferences and shopping history (12%) and integration with mass transit (9%).
“It is clear from our survey that in addition to improving the payment experience, mobile wallet apps need to support a multitude of services such as loyalty and couponing,” said Diarmuid Mallon, head of SAP’s global mobile marketing programs.
Respondents anticipate leaders of future successful mobile payments offerings to include banks (29%); online payment schemes such as PayPal, Apple iTunes or Amazon Payments (28%); and credit cards as well as consortia of operators (both 26%).
Indeed, 34% of those surveyed felt that applications like Apple Passbook will speed up brands offering wallet services.
Only 28% of mobile insiders expected new ticketing and coupon services -- such as Apple Passbook, Google Now and the Samsung wallet app -- could become an alternative to true mobile wallets.
Still, 38% believed that the lack of consumer awareness and too much confusion around the offerings were holding back mobile wallet services.