Americans trust Visa over Apple for m-payments

10 August 2011 | 10282 views | 0 iphone apps on screen

Technology firms looking to take a slice of the mobile payments pie, such as Apple and Google, still have a long way to go before Americans trust them as much as more traditional players like Visa, according to a survey from Ogilvy & Mather.

The poll of 500 US citizens, picked up by AdAge, shows that 37% of respondents trust Visa with mobile payments, compared to 36% for both MasterCard and American Express.

In contrast only 23% trust Apple, 22% Microsoft, 20% Google and a measly 12% Facebook. Bridging the gap between old and new, PayPal is trusted by 34%.

The results chime with a recent poll of 8603 people in nine countries from GfK, which found that financial services firms have the highest levels of trust, consideration and preference among consumers, with a score of 48%, when it comes to m-payments.

Mobile and telecommunication brands received significantly lower levels of trust when it comes to controlling financial transactions - just 10% as did brands such as PayPal, Nokia and Apple.

Google has decided to work with established financial services firms MasterCard and Citi for its push into contactless mobile payments while America's telcos have partnered with all the big card firms for their Isis project.

Separately, recent security tests of mobile applications by viaForensics found only 44% from financial institutions passed, although this is significantly above the overall pass rate of just 17%.