Only 2% of UK micro-businesses use an mPOS solution - report

According to a recent report titled ‘mPOS attitudes and adoption’, carried out by research firm MobileSquared on behalf of payment service provider Kalixa Group, the number one barrier to business growth is cash flow. mPOS solutions enable businesses to accept a card payment using a smartphone instead of a traditional fixed point-of-sale terminal.

The research reveals that 45% of micro-businesses identify cash flow as the number one barrier to growth. In addition, 48% of micro-businesses surveyed miss sales or face delayed settlement, with one in ten saying they miss sales because they don’t have the required payment capability. And more than half of respondents believe multi-channel payments will be important in the future.

The study also points out that micro-businesses are looking to mPOS technology to help solve these challenges. 19% believe mPOS will help with cash flow and 17% expect it to remove payment issues. An encouraging 38% of respondents say they will adopt mPOS in the near future as long as their concerns are addressed. Given mPOS is a relatively new technology and micro-businesses are typically hard to reach, it is surprising that 47% of respondents correctly identified the actual definition of an mPOS.

The report also highlights that despite clear interest, understanding and awareness of mPOS, adoption remains exceptionally low. Just 2% of respondents currently use mPOS technology. One major reason is that current mPOS and POS offerings are too slow to settle payments and help businesses’ improve cash flow. The majority of existing mPOS services takes between 7-10 days to settle payments.

The research also reveals that mPOS security (56%) and connectivity (29%) are major concerns among micro-businesses.

The research is based on responses from more than 1,000 UK micro-businesses (businesses of between one and nine employees in size) including market traders, fast food outlets, independent retailers, and mobile caterers.