Amex, MasterCard and Visa are the brands most trusted by US consumers for making payments via their mobile phones, according to a survey by US advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather.  Consumer preference for the three financial brands was markedly greater than for the kind of tech companies which aspire to enter the payments market via m-wallet initiatives. This bodes well for the incumbents when it comes to the shakeup of the payments market that is predicted will accompany mobile phone-based payments. The exception to this trend was PayPal which finished an honourable fourth behind the three financial brands, a result that indicates it could be a real force in the emerging mobile payments market.

In contrast, other tech brands such as Apple, Google and Microsoft inspire less faith among consumers. And Facebook featured even lower. More concerned should be mobile operators, none of whom featured among the 11 brands cited by consumers.
The study approached 500 online users in the US and asked them to select as many brands as they liked from a set list to answer the question: “Who would you trust with mobile payments”?

Other companies who featured among the top 11 brands were the US Postal Service in fifth place and Motorola (ninth place) and eBay, PayPal’s parent, one behind in tenth.