Report highlights discrepancies between what technology users want and what they adopt

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CAUTIOUS ADOPTERS: ING’s survey reveals that European consumers’ desire for new payments technologies outstrips their adoption of them

Despite greater than ever use of smart devices for banking and payments and a desire for the latest technologies, Europeans are some of the most cautious adopters, according to a survey of 15,000 consumers in Europe, America and Australia.

ING International Survey – New Technologies 2019 found that nearly 70% of Europeans now use smart devices to check their bank balances, transfer money and pay a bills, up from 55% two years ago.

Consumers are also keen for their banks to deliver the latest technologies according to 73% of respondents in Europe and 71% in the US. In Europe, 77% say the latest payment systems should work everywhere.

Apps have been used to find information by 65% of the European respondents with 44% using one to contact their financial service providers.

But they have failed to embrace newer technologies. Only 29% have used online chat tools and just 28% have logged into their main bank’s app via voice or fingerprint recognition.

Concerns about security appear to have prevented customer adoption of certain technologies. Two-thirds (66%) of Europeans think fingerprint log-in is secure but only just over half (52%) are confident of the safety of face recognition and only just over a third (35%) trust voice recognition. Two-factor authentication is deemed secure by 70% of Europeans.

The introduction of the new payments services directive (PSD2) in Europe, which will help enable open banking, is driving change since it will allow the sharing of data with other authorised financial service providers. But the survey shows a lack of awareness of open banking among consumers.

More than half of Europeans and Americans (55%) are unaware that financial providers can access their financial information from another company; of those Europeans who are aware, nearly half (47%) say they were not happy for their information to be shared.

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