Mobile wallets revenue will pass €1 billion by 2021

The forecasts are promising, but is the fragmentation of the digital wallet industry causing confusion for retailers and affecting adoption?

A newly published report from Smart Insights has revealed that mobile wallet transactions in the European Union will grow by 61.8% over 2016-2021. As a result, total mobile wallet revenue for the payments industry is forecast to surpass the €1 billion bar by 2021.

In Europe, the digital wallet industry has driven good customer and retailer awareness of the technology’s benefits. But, compared to China, for example, the market has not seen any examples of mass adoption yet. One of the two main Chinese players, WeChat, saw 420 million people sending 8.08 billion “red envelope” digital payments over Chinese New Year alone.

Part of Europe’s slow adoption may be due to the large and varied number of players launching in the market, from financial institutions to mobile companies and even retailers themselves.

Forrester’s latest report on digital wallets argues that, despite the confused market, digital business executives need to put adoption strategies in place now, or risk missing the opportunity. But in what is a complex ecosystem, Forrester believes that adoption will continue be slower than expected.

In the UK, the recent launch of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), the new economic regulator for payment systems industry in the UK, aims to counteract this confusion by promoting effective competition in the payments market. It will also support innovation in payments and encourage payment system environments that operate in the interest of users.