20% of Latvians reluctant to conduct financial transactions via smartphones - survey

RIGA - In Latvia, 20 percent of the population are reluctant to conduct financial transactions via their smartphones but the number of people willing to use their phones in financial transactions is growing, according to a survey by Swedbank Latvia.

Younger respondents are more open to management of financial services via smartphones - people aged under 29 years are most willing to make swift money transfers (38 percent) and to use all kinds of banking services (39 percent) via their phones.

The survey showed that 40 percent of Latvians would like to receive all key financial information via their smartphones and 29 percent are willing to manage all financial services, using their phones. For 63 percent it is important that they could use their smartphones to block their lost or stolen payment cards, 23 percent want to be able to make money transfers quickly and 20 percent would like to use their phones to pay for their purchases at stores.

Men are more willing than women to pay for their purchases with smartphones (30 percent against 12 percent). At the same time, the option of blocking a lost or stolen payment card via a phone is slightly more important for women than men (65 percent against 60 percent).

"People's wishes and the already existing habits demonstrate that on the whole the Latvian population is open to different innovations allowing for more convenient handling of everyday financial matters," said Vadims Frolos, a board member and the head of the Customer Service Department at Swedbank Latvija.

Swedbank will soon start offering its customers a new service - contactless mobile payments.

The survey was carried out in January 2018 in cooperation with Snapshot pollster among 700 Internet users aged 18-74 years across Latvia.

Swedbank is the largest bank in Latvia in terms of assets.