European Businesses Betting On Contactless: Nine In 10 Businesses Are Now Running Contactless Projects, Finds Gemalto
London, Mar. 10, 2016 - Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653), the world leader in digital security, today revealed that contactless is here to stay in Europe with over 90% of business leaders revealing they have already invested in a contactless project and the remaining companies set to do so. Furthermore, respondents expect that 10% of all transactions will come from contactless technology within the next three years. This is according to a survey conducted by Gemalto of business-decision makers in the UK, Germany and Spain across banking, retail, telco and transport organizations.
Decision time
With every business in the survey anticipating using contactless during the next three years, the time is here to make strategic choices. Leaders highlighted that marketing decisions were at the forefront of their roll out plans – just under a third (30%) are set to launch a solution through their own brand and a third (33%) will partner with someone launching under their brand.
European leaders also revealed that there is not yet a clear dominant payment option preferred on the market- with contactless payment cards (52%), mobile (50%), wearable devices (43%) and contactless store/loyalty cards (42%) being the current leading choices. This highlights that a combination of several form factors are needed to address different payments moments and consumer habits.
Finally, in order to overcome the technical aspects of the deployment stage, half of respondents believe they will need to outsource this to a trusted partner, with a further 12% saying they will outsource the entire process. Having strong security solutions (59%) and industry expertise and reputation (53%) are the top factors for organizations selecting a trusted partner.
Benefits outweighing concerns
The top three drivers for adopting contactless solutions are faster payments (74%), being seen to innovate (43%) and cost-effectiveness (42%). Reputational benefits are also important – 38% think it helps them to be seen as market leaders, and a third (33%) think that it differentiates from the competition and helps them to be seen as progressive in the eyes of their customers and the wider market.
However, business leaders did also understand that there are some concerns about security perception from users around these new payment methods (46%) and in terms of continuing to build consumer trust (35%). However, the vast majority (96%) are actively addressing these concerns principally through education and training for employees (44%), working with consultants (41%) and partnering with trusted technology suppliers (38%).
"Our survey indicates that businesses are going all in on investing in contactless which is reflective of today's consumer demand for convenience, speed and choice. And this is only going to grow with new players and new form factors that offer innovative and convenient payment solutions, coming onto the market"," said Howard Berg Senior Vice President, Gemalto UK and Ireland.
"To get to a point in a few short years where businesses predict that 10% of all their payments being made via such a new channel, is remarkable. This is testament to the benefits that businesses are already experiencing in terms of operational efficiency and reputational advantage. Of course, given contactless' relative immaturity, there are bound to be concerns to overcome, but this is where expert partners can help with security and integration expertise for businesses to take full advantage of all the benefits contactless offers."
To read the entire study and country-specific data findings, please visit: www.gemalto.com/b2b-contactless-survey
About the Survey
Independent technology market research specialist Vanson Bourne surveyed 240 business decision makers across the UK (80), Germany (80) and Spain (80) on behalf of Gemalto. The sample was split between banking (90), retail (83), telco (34) and transport (33) organisations with 250+ employees. The research took place in October 2015.
