Goodbye plastic and hello smartphones. While a small percentage of consumers are currently paying for goods by tapping terminals with their phones, two-thirds of Americans, according to a Harris Interactive poll, think it's just a matter of time before that's how we'll all be doing it.
While most think it's just a matter of time before we're all paying by smartphone, only eight percent of 2,383 adults surveyed by Harris are actually interested in chucking cash and cards to pay by phone now.
As might be expected, younger consumers are more open to the idea of using phones to pay for purchases in stores. Households with kids are also more willing to giving payments by smartphone a try than those without children.
A major stumbling block to smartphone adoption is concerns over security. Fifty-one percent who are not very or at all interested in using smartphones for making payments say they don't want to store sensitive information on devices that could be stolen. Forty percent are not comfortable using a phone to transmit data to a retailer's terminal.
Perhaps an even bigger impediment is convincing consumers there's a real need to make a switch to a different form of payment. Fifty-two percent just don't see a need now. What will convince them to think differently in the future?