Own your data to get its worth

A blog post by Jörn Leogrande, EVP of Wirecard Innovation Labs and Evan Kirstel, Tech Influencer.

Eye opening results

We all know that our data has a price tag, but have you ever considered using your data to pay? One of the most remarkable findings of the Wirecard Labs Global Market Research showed that in fact, many people have.

In parallel to the Wirecard Labs first-ever Innovation Challenge, where innovators from all over the world were challenged to share their vision for the future of payment technology, Wirecard carried out its Global Market Research to better understand the desires and expectations of next-gen customers in payments and technology. In this blog post, we will highlight one of the most outstanding findings: the increasing willingness to share data in exchange for goods or services.

Many of the questions may have been hypothetical, but the results were eye opening all the same. One of the key findings from the survey was the emerging willingness to share data in exchange for a good or service: more than half of the respondents were more willing to part with fitness/health data or information on their personal preferences than any other kind of data. While Germans and those in the UK were the most reluctant, consumers in China were less worried about providing this information, with 72% willing to provide personal preferences and 68% fitness/health data.

The results clearly highlight the emergence of data-as-a-currency and a real shift in consumer attitudes towards trust.

Willingness to share: differences in data

Despite our mobile phones typically pinging cell towers every few seconds to give away their location, only a quarter (26%) of Germans and three-in-ten (30%) Americans are willing to share this location data in exchange for goods and services. However, this number rose to almost half (48%) in Brazil, 51% in UAE and 63% in China.

While this willingness to exchange data for goods and services decreased as the data became more ‘intimate’ (i.e. chat conversations, voicemails and photographs), surprisingly over one-in-three (36%) global respondents were still willing to do just that. Geographical disparities continued, however:

• While almost two thirds (64%) of Chinese respondents would exchange voice conversations for goods and services, less than one-in-five (18%) of Germans said the same.
• Similarly, twice as many Brazilians (49%) to those in the UK (24%) would exchange photographs for goods and services.
  

A shift in society

There has, of course, been a wider general shift towards a willingness to exchange data in society. Many of us have a smart speaker such as Amazon Echo or Facebook Portal constantly connected and listening in. However, the survey highlighted that who respondents trust with regards to security and reliability is changing. Consumers are showing less trust in more traditional establishments like banks and retailers, and more trust in technology solutions like the aforementioned smart speakers and payment service providers.

Those consumers who are willing to exchange fitness/health data for goods and services are 71% more likely to trust payment service providers over those unwilling to exchange fitness/health of data. Meanwhile, respondents willing to use voice recognition technologies are 53% more likely to trust payment service providers than those that don’t.

The value exchange is changing

The value exchange between individuals and companies is changing. It could certainly be argued that data is the currency of the future. The key is going to be how brands give control back to consumers and how they allow access and transparency to how data is used. To find out more about the survey’s findings please click here.

One thing to keep in mind: At Wirecard we take data very seriously, and you should too. We never collect data without permission and would certainly never advocate that. Understand your data’s worth!

If you enjoyed our blog post, check out our webinar where we discussed future trends in a post-COVID world.