A new survey by Comscore shows how digital wallets other than PayPal, and possibly Google Wallet, need to work harder to establish their profile among US users.

The survey found that 72 per cent of respondents were aware of PayPal’s wallet but its rivals did not fare so well. However PayPal’s wallet has been in the market longer than its rivals.

The best performing of the competitors was Google Wallet with 41 per cent awareness among users, and that was significantly ahead of MasterCard’s PayPass wallet (13 per cent).

Other competitors gained less than ten per cent awareness:  Square Wallet (eight per cent), V.me by Visa (eight per cent), Isis (six per cent), Lemon Wallet five per cent) and LevelUp (five per cent).

In fact, digital wallets as a concept only had awareness among 51 per cent of US users for wallets other than PayPal.

“Digital wallets represent an innovative technology that has not yet reached critical mass among consumers due to a variety of factors, including low awareness and a muddied understanding of their benefits,” said Andrea Jacobs, the research firm’s  payments practice leader.

Comscore carried out two separate surveys of more than 2,000 US users in November 2012.

The survey also reveals low consumer experience of using digital wallets, which might explain the level of awareness too.

Beyond the 48 per cent of consumers with experience of using PayPal, Google Wallet was in second place with eight per cent. None of the other competitors had more than three per cent usage level.