That’s up from 34 percent in 2014. The recent online survey of more than 1,200 respondents, age 18 years and older, found that consumer preferences for using credit cards to shop online, combined with an overall increase in e-commerce, will likely cause a continued rise in credit use.

“Consumers have more payment options than ever before due to the continuing proliferation of new technology and non-traditional companies entering the payments industry,” said John Dale Hester, group executive of Relationship Management at TSYS. “Our goal from this survey is to provide relevant information to help our clients with their payment strategies, and to create a useful reference tool for other participants in the Canadian payments industry.”

In addition to providing insight into basic payment preferences and influencers of cardholder behaviors, the study also revealed how consumers prefer to communicate with their bank, as well as a growing adoption of the mobile channel as a part of the payment process. Other key findings include:

Consumers are interested in using their mobile phones to manage and protect their accounts. Nearly 30 percent of survey respondents indicated they were highly interested in the ability to use a mobile phone to stop an unauthorized transaction. Additionally, 25 percent of respondents found the ability to instantly view card transactions highly interesting.
Mobile apps offered by financial institutions have been highly adopted and are frequently used. Twenty-four percent of participants reported using a mobile app provided by their financial institution at least a few times per month.
Cardholders are open to receive communications from their financial institution. Nearly 50 percent of survey respondents indicated they were willing to receive coupons or special offers based on the information their bank collected about their purchase behavior.