Perhaps Unsurprisingly, Americans Keep More Cash in Their PayPal Accounts than Wallets

Shocking! Well, not that shocking.

According to a study from Logica Research released last week, Americans on average keep more money in their PayPal digital wallets than they do cash in their physical wallets. According to the study, among Americans with PayPal accounts, the average balance of their digital wallet is $485. Physical cash on hand, however, stacks up less than half as much at $196 on average.

So why keep so much money in a digital wallet like PayPal? According to the survey, most who keep money in their PayPal accounts do so to maintain a balance for transactional purposes. Fifty-five percent like to keep money in the account for other payments, 25 percent find it easier to track expenses, and 19 percent prefer it to a bank account. The remaining fifth do so because they haven’t gotten around to moving the funds, the survey found.

The digital payments and mobile wallet service is popular among consumers, the survey posits. Fifty-eight percent of Americans surveyed have a PayPal account, the study found. With 237 million active accounts according to PayPal, the study notes that PayPal transacted over $2.2 billion in the first quarter of 2018.

Click here to read more about the survey.