Fiserv’s 2020 Fraud and Security Survey

Over the summer Fiserv interviewed 1,037 American adults to determine consumer trends in digital commerce. The results shed light on ways the COVID-19 pandemic has been central to consumer decisions, especially in driving greater adoption of digital commerce and payment options. Even as 79% of consumers say they are at least as concerned about cybersecurity threats as they were last year.

A third of respondents have increased their use of touchless payments, and more (69%) anticipate increasing their use of touchless payments going forward. Credit and debit cards are still the preferred payment types (used by 52% of respondents), but 33% said they often use phone apps to pay and 15% use QR codes. Gen Z consumers lead in adoption of mobile payments apps (with 41% using them regularly). Millennials are close behind at 38%, while 21% of both groups report using QR code payments regularly.

Touchless payments have facilitated a rise in buying online and picking up in-store (or “BOPIS” shopping, at 43% usage) or curbside (50%). In fact, 43% of Gen Z’ers report that their phone has replaced their physical wallet—against only 16% of Baby Boomers. 

Increasing confidence in the security of e-commerce platforms

Consumers show increasing confidence in the security of e-commerce platforms. Only 18% considered it the most vulnerable channel (in 2017 52% felt they were most vulnerable to a cyber-attack while shopping online). And only 22% of consumers reported a credit card compromise in the last year (down from 57% in 2017), a decline that is attributable to the rise of chip cards as well as improved cyber security.

Younger consumers are much more likely to report having shared their personal data with someone through email, and perhaps therefore are seeing their personal information compromised as a much higher rate. Among all respondents, only 23% are confident in the security of the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) they use in payments. 36% report they are changing their passwords more frequently this year.

Based on these responses, Fiserv encourages businesses to incorporate multi-factor authentication into user profiles as a way of boosting security and customer confidence. Touchless payments will continue to grow in the years ahead. For more insight, read the survey results here.