Consumers Demand Real-Time Payment Delivery

When Albert Einstein said “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity,” I wonder if he ever thought humanity would be driving the future of technology. Case in point – just look at trends in consumer payment behaviors.

Fiserv releases a quarterly report, “Expectations & Experiences Consumer Payments” that focuses on financial behaviors to improve the consumer experience. The entire report screams DIGITAL CONSUMER! The findings aren’t a big surprise, but there are a couple new trends.

Highlights:

• Majority of payments are done online and through mobile channels
• Millennials are biggest adopters of anything and everything to do with online payment
• 74% of consumers pay their bills online (among those who use online bill pay)
• 65% use mobile bill pay among those who use mobile banking (among those who use mobile banking)
• 35% receive bills electronically
• 36% of online banking users receive account alerts

Emerging Trends

P2P is a person to person transaction involving electronic money transfers from one person to another through an intermediary. In the last couple of years use has grown to 19% among online consumers.

A digital wallet is an electronic device that allows an individual to make electronic transactions such as purchasing items online with a computer or using a smartphone to purchase something at a store. An individual's bank account can also be linked to the digital wallet. The most common features of a digital wallet include storing credit card, debit card, and health insurance info.

The take-away from this report -- consumers want anything that can make things more convenient, save money, eliminate clutter and help them do things faster. And 75% say real-time payment delivery matters the most.

Patients are consumers, they want the same things.