A new and fast trend is sweeping the world of payments, that of using the mobile phone as a credit card or wallet. Simply download the bank’s app and associate the card to start putting your mobile phone close to a dataphone and settle accounts. A simple movement that, like all those associated with digitalization, also implies a small sectoral revolution.
“The growth of mobile payments is occurring at an exponential speed,” they say from Banco Santander when asked about this trend. At CaixaBank they offer concrete figures: last year, payments from their clients’ mobile phones increased by 42%, up to 700 million operations. BBVA highlights the reliability of the new technology, and ING assumes that this modality will continue to grow in the coming years at “double digits”.
Coins and banknotes are in decline and the only question has to do with the speed and extent of their withdrawal. The Bank of Spain estimates that close to half of payment operations are still carried out in cash, but estimates the annual increase in digital modalities at 12%, whether by card, mobile phone, bizum and transfer. A recent report on payment trends by Minsait, a subsidiary of Indra, goes further and concludes that 72% of the Spanish population already pays “contactless”. More than 60% consider money to be the least sustainable payment option.
What it does seem is that the banks will not mourn the loss of cash. On the contrary, they share with the ecosystem of suppliers and technology groups the conviction that the trend is unstoppable and that from now on it will revolve around mobile phones. They prepare for a world governed by fast, convenient and secure digital transactions.
Will it be a blow to card operators like Visa or Mastercard? It seems not. Mobile operations require an associated card and these companies also mediate the transfer of digital payments. On the contrary, they see progress and great opportunities.
A study by Visa concludes that 42% of Spaniards already use their mobile phone to make payments and the company itself adds 9,000 million investments in technology around the world to not lose track. His sights are set above all on the proper functioning of the model. “It is essential to continue guaranteeing an optimal payment experience and here trust and security are fundamental,” says Eduardo Prieto, general director of Visa in Spain.
The next step is the payment from one mobile phone to another, without a dataphone involved. The Spanish fintech Divilo already allows you to buy the newspaper at the kiosk or pay for a trip in Cabify just by placing the customer’s mobile phone on the establishment’s mobile phone. To this, biometric indicators such as the iris of the eye will be added as a personal code.
CaixaBank closed last year with more than 6.7 million cards integrated into mobile devices and estimates that 28% of in-person purchases with the bank’s card are made through mobile phones. Payments can also be made with a smartwatch and through Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and other options.
BBVA highlights the good reception of the model, also among the sellers themselves. Its BBVA Cobros unit has detected that companies that use mobile phones as a dataphone increased their turnover by 55% in one year.
One of the main reluctance of users is security. Payments with a mobile phone, BBVA points out, “are just as secure” as a dataphone, it states. “No data about the cards is saved,” while “accessing them in any way” is prevented. Santander transmits a similar message: “mobile payment has almost no fraud.”
ING explains that at the end of 2023 more than 1.1 million customers in Spain had registered their cards in the different mobile payment applications, which represents an increase of 35% compared to the previous year. One in three purchases made with ING cards are made through a mobile phone.
The bank itself encourages digital payments. “At ING we have a strategy that is committed to the growth and evolution of digital payments both in the physical and online environments,” says Ángela Sánchez Vignote, head of Payments and Accounts at ING in Spain. The plan, she indicates, involves continuing to offer customers new mobile payment services.
