Mobile payments have proven their value during the pandemic as a way to limit our risk to exposure instead of paying with cash or card. Last year, per our estimates, smartphone usage in the US surged to an average of 182 minutes daily (from 154 minutes pre-pandemic), which extended to payments.
For some time now, consumers have been moving toward demanding more frictionless payment methods across online and offline channels. The social distancing and sanitizing practices brought on by the pandemic proved to be the push that encouraged many consumers to try proximity mobile payments (paying for goods using a mobile phone as a physical POS) for the first time. Ecommerce retailers, not to be outdone, are finding ways to improve their transactions as well.