New survey says Canadians with smartphones are increasingly open to using them to make credit-card-like payments.J.P. Moczulski/The Canadian Press
Canadians are increasingly embracing the idea of the smartphone as a wallet.
Almost half of Canadians with smartphones would consider using their mobile devices to make credit-card-like payments if the technology were readily available, according to the results of a new poll.
The survey, conducted for CIBC by Harris/Decima, indicates that 47 per cent of smartphone users would be interested in making mobile payments if they could.
Receptivity to the idea is higher among younger users: 51 per cent of respondents in the 18-to-34 age group said they would consider mobile payments, compared with 48 per cent among respondents in the 45-to-54 group.
Rewards would help boost interest, the survey found: 57 per cent of respondents said rewards for credit card purchases are important in deciding to use mobile payments.
"Canadians are embracing smartphones as part of their everyday life, and increasingly they are using these devices to stay connected to their finances through service like mobile banking and emerging options such as mobile payments," David Williamson, senior executive vice-president and group head of retail and business banking at CIBC, said in a news release Friday.
The bank and partner Rogers Communications Inc. are launching a national mobile-payments system on Friday.
The survey results also indicate that 36 per cent of respondents have used their smartphone for mobile banking, up from 25 per cent last year.
And more Canadians own smartphones, according to the poll: 44 per cent of those surveyed said they own a smartphone, compared with 33 per cent in a similar Harris/Decima poll for CIBC from 2011.
The results are based on a telephone survey, based on a sample of 899 smartphone users, conducted between July 12 and July 22. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Most new smartphones have so-called "near field communication" or NFC integrated within them, allowing them to communicate with an electronic sensor in order to make payments at the cash register.
Shoppers make payments with a simple wave of their phone.
The CIBC-Rogers digital wallet stores the consumer's Visa or MasterCard credit card data on the smartphone's SIM card, the chip inside wireless phones that give them their identity.
CIBC has said it won't impose new fees for the service.
Bertrand Marotte