Marqeta released its 2023 State of Payments report this month. The firm surveyed 4,000 consumers across the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. to gain an understanding of how consumer behavior is shifting and how financial decisions are made.
The data paints a picture of how consumers interact with new and old payment methods. Here are the three main takeaways we gathered.
Consumer adoption of embedded finance is growing… slowly
It’s no secret that embedded finance is one of the biggest trends in the financial services space at the moment. Consumers, however, aren’t ready to race in on this trend. Of the consumers surveyed, less than half (47%) said that they would consider using financial services from a non-financial services provider.
The growth here has been slow. The percentage of people who said they would consider using financial services from a non-financial services provider last year was 45%, only down 2% from those who shared the sentiment this year.
Mobile wallets become less intimidating
One fintech concept consumers are more positive about is mobile wallets. The concept has been around for more than a decade, and mobile wallets and other non-traditional payment methods have finally found a sweet spot with consumers.
In the past year, 80% of survey respondents said they had made a contactless payment, 77% said that they had made a mobile payment, 67% said they had paid using a mobile wallet, and 50% said that they used BNPL to make a payment.
Of the 67% who had used a mobile wallet to make a transaction in the past year, 93% said that it was convenient to use their mobile device to make a payment. This is up from 87% last year, which indicates that either consumers are becoming more savvy, mobile wallets are more user-friendly, or a combination of the two.
Incumbents maintain their footing
With all of this technology, where do banks stand? It turns out, consumers still rely on traditional banks quite a bit. Of those surveyed, 81% said they still use traditional banks. More than half, 56%, have never changed their primary banking provider and 72% said that they are satisfied with their current provider.
This indicates that traditional banks have been able to keep up with consumer expectations, even as society begins to age into the digital era.
Photo by Marc Mueller