In a Thursday panel about mobile payments at Mobile World Congress, PayPal Vice President of Global Product Hill Ferguson noted that while it was “easy to create a wallet, it’s hard to get consumers to use it.”
The act of using a digital wallet is still far from mainstream. Many consumers are still confused as to what a digital wallet actually does, while others are concerned about privacy and security breaches.
Therefore to get more consumers on board with the notion of using mobile payments, Ferguson said, companies need to give their customers added benefits.
“We have to give consumers a unique value they can’t get from a swipe [from a credit card],” said Ferguson. Right now, he noted, consumers used PayPal and solutions like PayPal Here because they was safe – payers don’t have to share their personal information with merchants. The features also saved consumers time.
However, if all payments companies are doing as an industry are replacing swipes with finger taps, “that’s not enough,” he said. “We have to give them unique value that they can’t get from a swipe. We need to challenge ourselves to think bigger.”