Mobile Wallet Purchases Skyrocket on a Small Base

Mobile wallets are used to store digital versions of cards on a mobile device, typically a smart phone. Consumers can make in-person payments by tapping or waving their phone at a payment terminal and remote payments via apps and at websites. Mobile wallet payments can be transmitted over general-purpose card networks or made with private-label accounts or cards. As you can see from the charts below (and perhaps from your own behavior), purchases made using mobile wallets have skyrocketed since 2018. Growth in these purchases from 2021 to 2022 exceed that of prior periods-53 percent by number and 45 percent by value.

The surprise for me in this data is the strong showing of mobile wallets for in-person purchases, which approached 60 percent of mobile wallet purchases in 2022. This leads me to conclude that consumers increasingly appreciate security features like tokenization and the convenience of not having to use a physical wallet.

The Federal Reserve Payments Study first collected mobile wallet data in 2015 and has collected this data annually since 2020. During these years, purchases have made up more than 90 percent of mobile wallet payments. Besides purchases, mobile wallet payments include person-to-person and "other"-that is, not classified-payments.

The charts above reveal a couple interesting patterns. First, you can see the average dollar values of mobile wallet purchases haven't changed much over the years. Second, the trajectory illustrated in both charts shows consistent growth rates by number and value. Other takeaways: Average values fluctuated in the mid-$30s over the charted years. Also, compared to in-person purchases, remote purchases averaged higher values, fluctuating between $44 and $47. This is the case for general-purpose card payments overall.

Despite their steady growth, mobile wallet payments remain uncommon compared to general-purpose card payments. In calendar year 2022, mobile wallet payments were just 9 percent of all general-purpose card payments by number and fewer than 5 percent by value. (This rough estimate potentially overstates the importance of mobile wallet payments in the card ecosystem, because it does not include private-label card payments.)