On the Horizon of New Payment Methods
We have arrived at the 2nd quarter of the year 2021, a full year since the onset of the pandemic. As with almost every industry, the payment industry has been shaken up as well. With government regulations of having to stay home and considerations for personal hygiene, cash payments have lowered considerably.
“The pandemic accelerated the decline of cash by over three years, exceeding in 2020 our previous projection for 2023. Cash was used for 20.5% of our global POS volume in 2020, a 32.1% reduction from 2019.” — FIS, The Global Payments Report
On top of that, the convenience offered by going cashless plays a role in the transformation of customer preferences at the point of sale. Digital wallet providers like GrabPay in the Asia Pacific offers users points when paying with their platform which can be redeemed for taxi vouchers or other products. Innovative cashless solutions like Buy Now Pay Later has been gaining traction with the population as well, allowing interest free short installment periods.
With payment trends continuing to shift from cash to cashless, businesses must be prepared for a myriad of customer preferences when it comes to the point-of-sale. As a business, it is imperative to provide avenues for consumers to pay which is especially daunting, with the wide variety of cashless options such as digital wallets, card payments, buy now pay later, bank transfers, contactless payments and even digital vouchers, all of which are commonplace now as payment preferences.
What has not been discussed is a payment channel that is not widely adopted yet. Cryptocurrencies. These digital currencies whilst not widely adopted, form a niche market where consumers would like a degree of control over their privacy and fees associated with their purchases. While it is a small market, it has been gaining recognition and traction across the world. On March 30th 2021, Paypal announced that customers are able to checkout with cryptocurrency held in their PayPal wallet
On the horizon of new payment channels, merchants can expect to see cryptocurrency as a mainstream method of payment in the future. Alchemy Pay is a platform positioned to provide an international payment channel for merchants. The payment channels of Alchemy Pay payment ecosystem include more than 200 fiat currencies in 65 countries; 20 types of digital currencies including BTC, BCH, BNB, BUSD, HT, HUSD, GUSD 300 types of fiat currency payment systems such as WeChat Pay, Alipay, Visa, Master, Dash, GrabPay, Nets, etc.; and hundreds of wallet providers the likes of Cobo, ImToken, Trust, etc.
Speak to us at service@alchemytech.io for more information
