According to an article by Uday Somayajula, a finance and banking consultant, millennials are using mobile and digital payments and giving up using cash, particularly in India but is fast becoming a global phenomenon. He cited that digitally influenced payments are rising based on a Boston Consulting Group survey that estimates that $45 to $50 billion of spending is digitally influenced, and expected to grow from 30 to 35% of all retail sales by 2025.
“The conventional wisdom that credit and debit cards were well and good, but that one needs some cash in the wallet at all times is finally becoming outdated. Convenient and credit-friendly –sometimes even offering you the option to pay later – the digital payment era of the Indian economy has dawned. “
No doubt that millennials are leading the way in mobile payments, person-to-person payments and mobile shopping. But cash is not dead yet, even for millennials.
In fact, according to Mercator Advisory Group’s CustomerMonitor Survey Series Payments survey conducted online by a panel of 3,000 U.S. adults in June 2017, 31% of consumers prefer to use cash in stores, even young adults. Yet, consumers who pay for goods by mobile phone in stores are less likely than average to prefer paying by cash in stores. Surprisingly, 52% of young adults say they spend $50 or more in cash a week. There still is a need for cash today despite the fact that nearly 3 in 4 smartphone owners and 9 in 10 young adults aged 18 to 34 shop online by mobile phone and 3 in 5 smartphone owners and nearly all of the millennial mobile shoppers did so in the previous month.
For more information on the Mercator Advisory Group CustomerMonitor Survey Series.
Overview by Karen Augustine, Manager, Primary Data Services at Mercator Advisory Group
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