ZAGREB,18 Feb (Hina) - Over 80% of Croatians want to pay with a smartphone or mobile phone, especially young people aged 18 to 29, and an increasing number of them also want to use a smartwatch, including citizens with high incomes, according to a MasterIndex survey on payment habits, Mastercard reported.

A thousand users of banking services in Croatia aged 18 to 55 participated in this survey in November 2024, which showed that they spend more than four hours a day on their mobile phones and that 81% percent of respondents want to use them as a wallet or means of payment.

The growth of mobile payments has not diminished citizens' willingness to pay with credit cards, as 84% of respondents still use them, most of whom have higher education, higher incomes, and are from Dalmatia and Zagreb. A large number of respondents also use cash, 72%, which is an increase of five percentage points compared to last year, while 10% of respondents use biometrics and 7% of them tablets.

The researchers found it interesting that about 4% of respondents said they were willing to use a chip or some other device implanted in the body for payment, as well as that about 3% would use household appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines for payment.

"95% of citizens find it important that a retailer offers different payment methods, which also opens up opportunities for them to earn more," said Gea Kariž, Director of Mastercard in Croatia.

Croats want better digitalisation of healthcare, public administration and transportation

Asked about digitalisation, 53% of respondents said they were satisfied with it in Croatia, which, according to Mastercard, is an increase compared to last year, adding that the satisfaction rating with digitalisation was highest during the 2020 'lockdown'.

When it comes to innovations and new digital services, the most, or 49% of respondents said they wanted them in the healthcare sector, 36% in public administration, and a quarter in public transportation. At the bottom of the list of priorities for digitalisation are car driving (7%), socialising with people (5% ) and other types of transport (2%).

Healthcare is also the most important segment for digitalisation across all age groups, while in public administration the importance of digitalisation increases with the age of the respondents, and the need for digitalisation of trade, travel, justice and markets was also highlighted, the survey showed.