The subscription economy is a major driver in the rise of payment credentials vaults, as are recurring payments writ large, and more consumers are interested in this form of storage.
As we learned in the PYMNTS study “Consumer Interest in Credentials Vaults,” based on a survey of over 2,300 U.S. consumers, roughly 60% of consumers currently store credentials to pay for subscriptions and online purchases.
It’s even higher among millennials and high-income consumers, of whom 68% and 65%, respectively, use stored credentials when making recurring payments.
We found that 39% of consumers would use payments vaults to make most or all of their online transactions if they could. The share is even higher among consumers who are already used to paying via stored credentials: 51% of these consumers would use payments vaults for most or all of their online transactions if they could.
Why the rising demand for payment credential vaults? Per the study, “interest in using a credentials vault correlates with having experienced more issues with payments in the past, such as having a payment declined because the card information was outdated.”
We found that consumers who have experienced issues with their payment credentials are almost twice as likely to be interested in payment vaults than those who did not, with 43% of consumers who experienced issues when paying with stored credentials highly interested in using a vault, compared to 25% of those who did not have these issues.
PYMNTS research shows consumers have a low trust threshold when it comes to storing this sensitive information, and they see vaults administered by certain entities as more trustworthy.
“Consumers continue to say they trust their primary banks to provide a credentials vault, far more so than non-FIs such as Amazon or PayPal,” with 59% of consumers trusting their primary banks to provide a vault service, and 45% considering them the provider they would trust the most to provide vault services.
However, the study states, “Trust in tech companies such as PayPal or Amazon to provide a vault has increased since September 2022. In September 2022, 40% of consumers trusted PayPal to provide a vault, and 37% trusted Amazon. These shares increased in January 2023, reaching 49% for PayPal and 43% for Amazon.”
Get your copy: Consumer Interest in Credentials Vaults