Mobile wallets are a contactless way of making payments on your phone. The mobile or digital wallet stores payment information and passwords. Some examples of the most popular digital or mobile wallets include Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Mobile wallets not only allow users to pay from their digital devices, like phones, and eliminate the need to carry a physical wallet, they can store gift cards, plane tickets, hotel reservations and even proof of a COVID vaccine.
COVID-19 is a good example of why mobile wallets have become important. With banks shut down like a light-switch, people needed alternate ways of extracting money to buy groceries and other necessities. People did not want to touch anything to prevent spreading the disease. According to an article by Cogent Business & Management, an Open Access multidisciplinary Business and Management journal, 79 per cent of the world’s population in 2020 used contactless payments at retail chains with an increase of 25 per cent.
According to Globe News Wire, a large newswire organization in North America and Europe, 50 per cent of the world’s population will use mobile wallets three years from now. Since late 2020, nearly three billion people used this payment method. However, that number could increase by another two billion by late 2025, according to the organization’s director, Laura Wood.
The mobile wallet was introduced back in 2011, according to Merchantyard, a business website known for design, simplicity, and effectiveness. The digital wallet is better than a standard wallet, mainly because it is safer. The chances of misplacing virtual currency are lower than losing paper money, whether that be through dropping it or having it stolen.
Since online banking comes with logins, it would be much more complicated for financial theft to happen, since no one except you should know that information. This is how crime rates decreased, because people are not carrying physical currency. The Balance, a website that breaks down budgeting, economics, mortgages and other financial-related matters says that contactless payment means reduced crime rates.
Mobile wallets make exchanging money possible without visiting banks; you can exchange money with people internationally, since mobile wallets are used worldwide, based on a Thunes article, “Why Mobile Wallets are the Future of Commerce.”
The COVID-19 pandemic showed that this alternate payment method was needed for people to go shopping while practicing social distancing. When covid cases were dangerously high, businesses and services were closed. People needed a way to send and withdraw money.
The mobile wallet is a safer and quicker form of payment than the standard method.