Kaspersky’s recent study of digital payment apps showed it still is, but may not be for long. One of its key findings showed that a great majority (90%) of the Asian respondents has used mobile payment apps at least once in the past 12 months, confirming the fintech boom in the region.
The Philippines logged the highest percent of new e-cash adopters at 37%, followed by India (23%), Australia (15%), Vietnam (14%), Indonesia (13%), and Thailand (13%). The lowest number of first-time online payment users are China (5%), South Korea (9%), and Malaysia (9%).
Nearly 2 in 10 (15%) of which only started using these platforms after the pandemic.
China has been a notable leader in mobile payments in Apac. Even before the pandemic, its top local platforms, Alipay and WeChat Pay, have witnessed significant mass adoption and served as an example to follow for other Asian countries.
Titled “Mapping a secure path for the future of digital payments in Apac”, the research studied local users’ interactions with the available online payments in the region and examined their attitudes towards them, which hold the key to understanding the factors that will further drive or stem the adoption of this technology.
“Data from our fresh research showed that cash is still king, at least for now, in Apac with 70% of the respondents still using physical notes for their day-to-day transactions. However, mobile payment and mobile banking applications are not far behind with 58% and 52% users utilising these platforms at least once a week up to more than once a day for their finance-related tasks.
“From these solid statistics, we can infer that the pandemic has triggered more people to dip their toes into the digital economy, which may fully dethrone cash use here in the next three to five years,” says Chris Connell, managing director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.
This story is from the Issue 35, 2021 edition of SME Magazine Singapore.
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This story is from the Issue 35, 2021 edition of SME Magazine Singapore.
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