It definitely is not here yet – just 4% of Americans say they have paid with a tap of a phone – but in the latest Harris Interactive poll a majority of Americans predict that smartphone payments will eventually replace cards and cash.

About two in three – 66% – said smartphones would replace credit cards. Sixty-one percent said ditto for cash.

The question is when, and there, Americans express more caution. According to the Harris poll, only 32% – roughly one-third – believe smartphone payments will replace credit cards inside the next five years. The number dips to about one in four – 26% – who say smartphones will displace cash in five years.

Curiously, only tiny numbers self-characterize themselves as “very interested” in displacing credit cards and cash. Per the Harris numbers, 8% of all of us and 16% of smartphone owners say they are eager for the revolution.

However, generational and gender differences are highlighted in these results where a younger, male demographic especially wants to pay by phone.

Thirty-two percent of males express eagerness, compared to 22% of females. Thirty-four percent of Gen Xers and 40% of Echo Boomers want to do it, compared to 18% of Boomers and 7% of Matures.

The report also noted: “When asked how the ability to use their smartphones as a 'digital wallet' with electronic versions of all the identifications, loyalty program cards and other documentation normally carried in a wallet – thereby allowing them to leave their physical wallets at home – three in 10 Americans (30%) and over four in ten smartphone owners (43%) indicate it would make them more interested in doing so, but far fewer (8% and 12%, respectively) specify that it would make them much more interested.”

Instant Insights /

Survey: Majority of Americans Say Smartphone Payments to Replace Cards, Cash

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