Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
The Economist Explains: The Security of Smartphone Payments
Apple Pay is already available to many iPhone users, but the iWatch, which allows consumers to buy things with little more than a wave of the wrist, could significantly accelerate adoption among Apple customers and retailers. Assuming, that is, that users warm to the new payments technology enough to get over fears about stolen accounts. They should. Smartphone-based payments are typically more secure than credit cards. Why is that?
Smartphone-payment systems are not iron clad. The weak spot in any mobile-payment system, whether Apple Pay or another, is the point of enrollment, when a customer’s existing credit card is linked to the system. Apple explains that as part of its enrollment process, it gathers a variety of markers about the user’s online Apple account and phone characteristics, such as a rough approximation of its current geographical coordinates.
Read more, via The Economist.