I bet that the majority of people in the room have downloaded Venmo in their phone. I can also bet that the majority has used Uber or Lyft before . How am I so sure, well
Percentage of mobile payment app use
The Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first institution to offer online banking services to customers in 1994. However, early online payment systems were not very user friendly, requiring specialized knowledge of data transfer protocol. Thus, not many people were able to use it and it wasn’t popular.
But in 1999, PayPal began as an online money transfer service. Its popularity took off when it became popular with eBay users. EBay acquired PayPal in 2002, owning it until 2015, when it was spun off as a separate company.
PayPal consistently innovated, with features like payments that could be made using email addresses, the addition of new currencies but most importantly mobile payment apps. Eventually, the market for mobile payment apps expanded which led to
Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. These three mobile apps each work with different devices, Apple pay with apple products, Samsung pay with Samsung products and google pay with overall android products. But what is special about these apps?
NFC. NFC or near-field communication allows user to use their phone instead of a card as a form of payment by just tapping the phone or smart watch to a compatible terminal. But now lets talk about the app that we all use:
Venmo. Venmo is a peer to peer mobile payment app used to pay small amounts. Yet, the app has transformed the way in which we pay others by adding a description to the payment. Probably more than one person here has paid a friend and tried to produce a funny caption for the payment.
The popularity of the app has been at an all time high and now some popular apps accept Venmo such as Uber, and Uber Eats. Stores that accept Venmo include lululemon and Abercrombie & Fitch
The Starbucks app was the most popular mobile payments platform in the US in 2018. With 23.4 million users, Starbucks beats second-placed Apple Pay (22 million) and the coffee giant is expected to maintain its lead into 2022 graphics of payment apps
In the US there is stil;l a long way to go with mobile payment apps as 90% of the population still prefers cash, 70% has concerns about the apps and 40% is scared of their banking safety
Globally, we can see that although the US still has a major cultural shift pending, it is ranked as number 6 in countries that use mobile payment apps. Yet, we cannot ignore the country leading the boards of mobile payment use, I am talking about
China. With China’s huge population it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the global market is dominated by Chinese tech firms. Both WeChat and Alipay hold payment services and both have reported 1 billion users in the past year. Another country that is in the process of going cashless is
Sweden. In 2018, only 13 percent of Swedes reported using cash for a recent purchase. In the capital, most people can't even remember the last time they had coins jingling in their pockets.
This is a usual sign that is displayed everywhere in Sweden. From local restaurants to shops, even in the public restrooms where people are charged approximately 1 dollar no cash is accepted. But how can a country go cashless and use online payment apps?
Strong broadband coverage, even in remote areas, and a small, tech-savvy population of just 10 million have contributed to the cashless trend picking up more quickly in Sweden than elsewhere.
It is true that the demographics of a country will greatly impact how much