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.
Mobile Payment Dangers
It’s been hard not to miss the steady stream of news suggesting that some time soon the U.S. will catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to using mobile phones and other devices as digital wallets. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, the idea of mobile payments is pretty simple: You go to a store, and rather than whipping out cash or plastic, you offer up your cell phone, which pays for your purchase and charges a credit card that you’ve used to open your mobile phone bank (as it were)… What some refer to as “contactless payment” makes spending remarkably easy, which is why the two of us, progress lovers both, are at least a little nervous about the implications of this technology. Our concern is based on an ur-principle of behavioral economics — mental accounting. [Read more…]