PayPal UK: Mobile wallets won’t become mainstream until 2016

“2016 will mark the real start of money’s digital switchover in the UK,” says the boss of PayPal UK. “Children born today will become the UK’s first ‘cashless generation’. It will be completely natural for them to pay by mobile.”

PayPal Carl Scheible
SCHEIBLE: 'Children born today will become the first cashless generation'

It will be 2016 before UK shoppers can leave their wallet at home and go shopping with their mobile phone on Britain’s high streets, according to ‘Money: The Digital Tipping Point’, a new report from PayPal UK.

PayPal’s findings are based on a survey, conducted by Forrester Consulting on PayPal’s behalf, which consisted of interviews with ten senior executives from major UK retailers and other businesses plus a survey of the mobile buying habits of 550 UK mobile shoppers.

“We’ll see a huge change over the next few years in the way we shop and pay for things,” says Carl Scheible, managing director of PayPal UK. “By 2016, you’ll be able to leave your wallet at home and use your mobile as the 21st century digital wallet. Our vision of money is to enable you to pay for something from wherever you are, whatever device you’re on — a PC, mobile phone, tablet, games console and a whole lot more.

“2016 will mark the real start of money’s digital switchover in the UK,” Scheible added. “We’re not saying cash will disappear entirely, but we’ll increasingly use our phones and other devices rather than our wallets to pay in-store as well as online.

“The lines between the online world and high street will soon disappear altogether. Children born today will become the UK’s first ‘cashless generation’. It will be completely natural for them to pay by mobile.

“PayPal’s vision is a one-stop shop for retailers to engage their customers directly during every part of the shopping lifecycle — generating demand from consumers through location-based offers, making payments accessible from any device, not just from the mobile phone, and offering more flexibility to customers even after they’ve checked out.”

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