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Here’s Why Millennials Are Replacing The Money Phone With Mobile Payments

By CultureBanx Team

  • 14% of Black people made a mobile payment
  • Mobile payment market expected to reach $983.9B in 2022

The money phone is soon to be a relic of the past as more millennials look to their smartphones as the primary means of making financial transactions. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) mobile payments have been dominating the U.S. mobile payment market with transaction value expected to reach $983.9 billion in 2022, 25.3% higher than in 2021. With Pew Trusts finding that 14% of Black people made a mobile payment, what are banks and financial technology companies going to have to do to respond to the needs of this coveted group of consumers?

Why This Matters: Mobile payments are the future of commerce in the U.S. with industry experts crediting the growing popularity of P2P mobile payments to three companies in particular, Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App. Survey data from WPP (WPP -0.53%) subsidiary J. Walter Thompson Intelligence shows 63% of millennials in the U.S. rarely use cash. Further, 75% of U.S. millennials say they want a broader range of products that align with their lifestyles and needs.

There are 92.3 million proximity mobile pay users in the U.S.Black people are more likely to make mobile payments than any other ethnic group in the U.S. African American Black teens are the biggest users of mobile phones and they tend to set the tone for consumer choices. Payment providers, retailers, and banks have an incentive to provide products that seamlessly facilitate the consumption choices Black consumers are guiding the rest of U.S. consumers to make.  

To date, companies like Apple (AAPL -0.23%) have struggled to get traction with consumers on their payment applications. The number of iPhone users who have tried Apple Pay is the most popular proximity based mobile payment app, according to Statista.

What’s Next: Wells Fargo (WFC +0.06%) recently announced Pay with Wells Fargo, a modification to the bank’s mobile app that (WF +/-%) will allow users to access mobile payment options from the app’s home screen without logging in. The bank is rolling the update out to its employees before releasing it to the public later in 2018.

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