Asian countries show high receptivity to smart payment

South Korea, China and Southeast Asian countries appear to be open to adopting new ways of payment involving devices such as smartphones, wearables and other connected devices for greater convenience, said global card payment company Visa on Thursday.

International internet-based market research firm YouGov conducted a survey on 10,500 adults from 13 countries in the Asia-Pacific region to find out their receptivity to new payment technologies.

Eighty-seven percent of the respondents from Korea said that they were willing to try making payments through mobile and wearable devices. The corresponding figure was 90 percent among respondents from China and 85 percent on average across the six Southeast Asian countries.

On the other hand, only 28 percent from Japan showed a positive response. Out of the Japanese respondents, 56 percent said that they were satisfied with conventional payment methods and 32 percent said that they were worried about the safety of new systems.

Regarding their willingness to provide more personal information to increase the convenience of payment methods, 71 percent from Vietnam and Indonesia said that they would agree to it, followed by 70 percent from Thailand and 66 percent from South Korea. Only 16 percent from Japan agreed to do so.

Overall, the more receptive people were about adopting new payment methods, the more willing they were to share their personal information in return for greater convenience.

By Yim Ji-min (jiminy@heraldcorp.com)