Most of us in the payments industry think about NFC vs Cloud, iOS vs Android, SMS vs wallet, deals, aggregations and a whole set of novel functionality. But how much of this matters to the  mass adopters is what we need to understand deep. Of course, the mobile wallet hasn’t crossed the chasm yet and we need to focus on early adopters.

Yet, we need to clarify these points and address these points – how much ever trivial – if we need to get ahead as a mobile wallet industry. I stumbled upon an article which talks about some very basic concerns. Check out http://www.bostonfed.org/bankinfo/payment-strategies/publications/2012/opportunities-and-challanges-to-broad-acceptance-of-mobile-payments.pdf

I have extracted couple of survey data from this document to show what wallet providers need to address in the next few months. It is NOT much about technology, savings, deals nor convenience but more about security, identity theft, damage limit, etc.

Here are some concerns shown by people in a survey done by Federal Reserve Board.

Mobile wallet – Top Security concerns

Along with the security concerns, here are some more concerns expressed in an other survey in the document. Thanks to Federal Reserve Boston for covering these important points..

Consumer concerns on using a mobile wallet

As an adept Internet and  Mobile savvy consumer and gadget-loving person, I can still appreciate many of these concerns. If I lose  my physical wallet (which I have,  by the way during a vacation in Paris some years ago), I know the limit of my damage. Frustration, anger, grief apart, I know what to do to contain the damage.  Thanks to the credit card features, I can be assured that I am not liable beyond a certain amount..

However, just like in online banking, I may not even be aware when the phone is hacked and when hackers steal my credentials. With a higher probability of losing a mobile phone than a laptop/desktop, I am more vulnerable to this danger in the case of a mobile.

As a payments consultant, I can claim that I can understand how most of these concerned are addressed by either the technologies and banking regulations.  Despite this, I have difficulty in convincing my wife to attach her bank accounts to her wallets. If the wallet gets hacked, where can she go to? The banks, wallet providers, Google (Android layer), Apple (iOS layer)?

If we have to get more mobile wallets into the usage of the mass adopters, we better address these explicitly, clearly and with more conviction. Paypal, Dwolla, and the other 200 mobile wallet providers, are you listening?