An infographic recently published by Raconteur, illustrates the UK’s growing addiction to mobiles. It concludes that Brits are spending more and more time on their smartphones, doing more and more things. It predicts that by 2018, they will spend on average over two hours per day on a mobile device. Thirty-four percent of users check their smartphone in the middle of the night; 25 % have someone bump into them at least once a week because they were too busy looking at their phone and 86% check their device at least once an hour.
Source: Raconteur; Mobile addiction in the UK
However, there is one activity which seems to escape the mobile addiction: payments! According to a Deloitte report, by mid-2014, only 0.5% of the base of 450-500 million near-field communication (NFC) equipped smartphones were used at least once a month. Deloitte predicted the number would increase tenfold by end 2015 but the prediction is not confirmed at this stage. But even at 5%, this is very far from mainstream adoption.
The use of mobile phones for payments has been discussed for over a quarter of a century. In many cases, its proponents had announced the demise of cashMoney in physical form such as banknotes and coins. More as users would rapidly adopt the new technology. This has not materialised. In fact, mobile phones are increasingly used to withdraw cash as growing numbers of ATMs are now NFC-enabled.