ACI Worldwide, a leading international provider of payment systems, released the results of a new survey of banks, retailers and payment processors that sheds new light on industry trends related to EMV, mobile payments and banking, fraud and innovation.
This survey was conducted at the 2013 ACI Americas Exchange conference in Boston, Mass. from June 4 to 6, 2013.
EMV Will Drive Mobile Adoption while Reducing Physical Card Use
Among the principal findings, ACI found that those intimately involved in banking and payments believe that EMV is poised to drive the adoption of mobile technology. According to the survey, nearly half of all respondents (49 percent) believed the U.S. migration to EMV will result in consumers turning away from card-based transaction in lieu of mobile payments.
“It was interesting, and frankly a bit surprising, to see data that so strongly indicates a belief that consumers will move away from physical cards in lieu of mobile,” said Dan Heimann, consulting manager, ACI Worldwide and vice-chairman, EMV steering committee, U.S. EMV Migration Forum, in a prepared statement. “Everything I have heard during my work with the Forum and in conversations with those in the industry has led me to believe there will be dual adoption and consumers will continue to carry their physical cards. Given these findings, I’m more intrigued than ever to watch the rollout and adoption rates for EMV cards.”
Additionally, as the migration toward EMV continues in the U.S., those surveyed admitted that there are challenges to rolling out the new payment systems. When asked what specifically they felt would be the biggest challenge to EMV implementation, respondents answered as follows:
• Nearly one in three (32 percent) noted that rolling out hardware updates (like POS terminals, ATMs, etc.) would present the largest issue
• 26 percent believed the biggest challenge would be educating and training business constituents along with driving consumer awareness and adoption
• 24 percent said they were most concerned about meeting compliance and liability shift deadlines
When asked what trend will have the biggest impact on banking and retail over the next six to 12 months, only 15 percent noted that uniform EMV standards will catapult adoption and rollout.
“Mobile and contactless payments are important drivers to EMV adoption in the U.S. and the results of our latest survey certainly affirm what we’ve been speaking with our customers about over the last few years,” said Heimann. “Due to the impending deadline for the liability shift, we are seeing forward-thinking merchants and retailers take this opportunity to ensure that they have the hardware and infrastructure in place to accept contact EMV cards, contactless (NFC) EMV cards and EMV mobile payments.”
