As we progress towards the end of the fiscal year, businesses ranging from the smallest to the largest have a lot of stress on their plates, which often goes beyond accounting and next year’s high-reaching objectives. Hardly can one tell that the way customers pay is a detail that is set when the foundation of the start-up is built and then never revised again. The truth is that trends and preferences in payment methods among customers are just as variable as tendencies in ways to purchase goods.
With the rapid shift towards e-commerce, online shopping, virtual product customization, and everything in between, it stands to reason that payments had to evolve in concordance and see new methods coming into the finance stage. All the constant tech discoveries, changing customer tastes, and overall economic landscape can’t possibly leave the payment market unimpacted. For instance, with the increase in digital wallet and crypto adoption rates on the back of growing Ethereum price points comes a shift in how customers perceive the way they pay for goods and services.
If you run a business, you know you can’t afford to close your eyes to what customers want, especially when it comes to something as crucial as how they’ll transfer funds and what type of info they’ll submit. To provide you with valuable insights into the evolving expectations of commerce participants in 2024 regarding payment methods and to ensure you are well-prepared rather than caught off guard, we encourage you to keep on reading and discover those expected to be ubiquitous.
SoftPOS
Hardly can you nowadays wait in line at the supermarket and see someone take out cash from their wallets. Contactless payments are widely spread, and since the pandemic, they have become a must-have in businesses, with more and more methods seeing broad implementation across both urban and rural regions. And this is not just enterprises’ way of standing out and keeping up with the trends, but it’s what delimits a prosperous business from an unsuccessful one. According to a 2023 survey conducted by the leading financial services company, Mastercard, over 50% of all U.S. consumers resort to contactless rather than cash-down payments. The security, intuitiveness of activating the NFC, and ease of use of the overall procedure can’t help but make it a highly desired payment option across all age segments.
SoftPoS will witness a boom in adoption rates as the elderly grow increasingly accustomed to digital payments and smartphone penetration rates worldwide escalate year-on-year. Last year, the global population, standing at approximately 7.4 billion, saw an outstanding increase in smartphone subscriptions, reaching 6.3 billion, according to Statista. France led with a penetration rate of 83.6%, whereas the U.S. came after, with 81.6% of the population being familiar with smartphones.
The SoftPoS market is astronomical and will only expand in the future, capturing a larger and larger share of the global payment market. Out of all the five geographic regions that make up the SoftPoS market worldwide, namely Europe, South America, Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific, and North America, the latter accounts for the better part of it. Only in 2022, the overall estimation of the market stood at USD 248.5 million, with a forecasted expansion rate of 20.4% until the end of the decade and a reached value of USD 1,077.4 million. As a result, businesses that have not yet recognized the significance of contactless payment methods must seriously reconsider their approach and adapt to the changing landscape, drawing inspiration from forward-looking enterprises that promptly embraced this trend.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum became and secured their position as one of the hottest topics in the world of finance and abroad, with 92% of respondents in a survey conducted by pioneering web3 software company Consensys attesting to having heard about them at least once. Although there’s a prevalent need for an in-depth understanding of the intrinsic nature of digital currencies, such as stablecoins and altcoins, there has been a remarkable surge in people’s attempts to comprehend cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology, blockchain. People have invested in them despite the many intricacies yet to be grasped and used to pay for various goods and services, with companies like Starbucks, Visa, Gucci, PayPal, Wikipedia, and more starting to accept them for their offerings.
Impactful events like the numerous failures of central banks and exchanges last year have shone a stronger light on the crypto industry. Nonetheless, investors continued to hold onto their digital coins because they are widely perceived as reliable stores of value and assets poised to have a substantial impact in the future. Unlike fiat money, most cryptocurrencies can’t be endlessly issued, having a hard cap that’s mathematically calculated and aimed at propping up their market price.
The features outlined above, as well as many other unneglectable aspects, strengthen the theory that cryptocurrency prominence is going nowhere and pseudonymous payments conducted from digital wallets with virtual money will sooner or later become the norm. Consequently, businesses seeking long-term prosperity and unwilling to be left in the dust have no other choice but to delve into this sector and get ready for the changing landscape of customer payment method trends, whatever they may entail.
Biometric Payments
Lastly, the biometric payment industry is poised to seize a significantly more significant portion of the payment market in 2024 than in the current year. The ability for users to conduct transactions using their unique physical traits for authentication makes room for plenty of opportunities for exploration. These methods include cutting-edge technologies such as facial recognition, retinal scanning, fingerprint authentication, infrared palm vein scanning, and many others, all of which have become commonplace on virtually every smart mobile device.
This payment category is forecasted to grow at a 19% compound annual growth rate through 2026, achieving $19,000 million globally by the end of that year. Customers’ ability to conduct payments without needing a cumbersome wallet or bag is very attractive in a world where convenience and efficiency rank among the highest priorities.
As global smartphone penetration rates rise and people’s interest in the financial sector’s players, like the cryptocurrency system, grows at astronomical proportions, the numerous digital, biometric, and pseudonymous methods to pay for goods and services will also change. It is ultimately up to any business to decide how they’ll leverage the upcoming trends and make it all work in their favor.
