In 80s and 90s the payments were purely through cash gradually came the cheque concept. When the contactless payment concept was introduced in 2007 lot of consumers migrated to it; the transaction was made through phone or card which mad the transaction seamless, in future we will definitely be doing the payments based also on the context (surrounding and following payment itself) and not solely on the execution. Now in the pandemic era it’s not at all surprising if you see a sign that says ‘cashless payments only”. The Church of England made over 16,000 cities to allow contactless donations in 2018.
Speed, security, accessibility and hygiene are key factors that drives the switch from cash to contactless payments. Speed is the factor that depends on efficiency for ex the more products you produce the more products you have to sell and make money; it can also be considered as the time you take to adapt your business to new technology. Security is the main aspect of cashless payment, when the payment is cashless there is no chance of movement of the fake notes, it also decreased the thefts most importantly the payment will be accurate secure and efficient. It saves time and paper work with making the business grow stronger. Accessibility, the business or industry you are running should be accessible for your consumers the best example in real time would be smart phones, they serve most of contactless transactions; people trust online payments and e-commerce the most because they make the contactless purchases easier. Hygiene becomes first priority in the situation of pandemic since humans get infected through physical touch, the contactless payments has made it easier.
To conclude; in the year 2006 in UK, 62% of payments was with cash, it dropped to 58% in 2009, it was further dropped to 40% in 2016 the story doesn’t end here; the cash payments are reducing day by day that in 2018 the numbers were fallen and the cash payment percentage dropped to 28%. One of the studies says that due to COVID only 1 in 10 payments will be made as cash by 2028 because of the pandemic. Pandemic has surely encouraged the contactless payments which is definitely one of the reasons that will make consumers to switch to contextual payments.
