What role will online payments play in the new post-COVID-19 normality?

The health crisis caused by COVID-19 has triggered numerous economic and social changes that, in all likelihood, will largely remain in the new postcoronavirus normality. As we have talked about several times lately, businesses that didn’t previously have an online presence have been forced to virtualize in order to continue offering service to the confined population and not having significant economic losses.

For their part, those businesses that didn’t have an online store or the possibility of creating one at the moment, have found an intermediate solution in our pay-by-link service, through which their customers have been able to order and pay by contacting them directly by different online channels. Ultimately, it’s a way to take the digital leap with minimal investment, an affordable option for any business.

As expected, during the confinement online purchases are estimated to have increased by 55%, being the only way to continue providing goods to citizens while maintaining social distancing and security measures established by the authorities. But it’s also anticipated that this number will never return to what it was before quarantine, initially for fear of contagion and, in the long term, for the total acquisition of the new buying habit.

On the other hand, businesses that have been able to remain open, such as supermarkets and grocery stores, have seen the use of card and contactless payments increase significantly, due to consumers' fear of using cash because of its large bacteria transmission capacity (not viruses). Not surprisingly, the cash withdrawal fell 68% in March. Contactless payments have been especially favored by the bank's decision to increase the payment limit hereby from € 20 to € 50 without the need to insert the pin into the dataphone. This decision has been given by the recommendation of the European Banking Authority, with the aim of avoiding physical contact with the terminals as much as possible and thus reducing the possibility of contagion.

All these measures and new habits acquired reaffirm a trend that had been going on for years, the trend towards the total digitization of payments and the residual use of cash. And, although the classic means of payment will rarely disappear, the truth is that giving the maximum possible payment options to the customer is today as the only way to avoid losing sales. For this reason, at PaynoPain we work to create innovative, very secure payment methods that meet all needs.

Sources: Ecommerce News, Europapress