2019 was an impressive year for the payments industry; tech innovation and the changing perspectives and expectations of customers and businesses continue to reshape the aspect of both physical and digital commerce. Due to the recent pandemic, we expect the evolution of payment services to continue; some of the key trends that emerged last year will become even more prominent. We predict the following will play a significant part in determining the future of payments in 2020.

NFC /Contactless Payment 

Coming into 2019, the US market was years behind many nations in the world in the adoption of contactless (NFC enabled) debit and credit cards. There is a collective effort on the part of consumers and banks to correct this due to COVID-19; Visa is predicting that over 100 million NFC enabled cards will be in circulation in the US by the end of 2020.

In addition to the release of contactless cards, one needle-mover may be the growth of the Visa Ready for Transit program. In the UK, it was the introduction of contactless payments to the London Underground that sparked a notable increase in adoption; and over three million contactless payments have been made since the contactless payments pilot was started on many subway services in New York in June 2019. The number of routes will increase in New York as well as launching in San Francisco and Boston in 2020. Merchants are ready for the change, and the consumers are demanding it. Contactless payment is here to stay as we are fully aware of how COVID-19 spreads. 

The constant rise of omnichannel payments

As small businesses try to keep up with their online competitors, they are coming under an increased requirement to deliver the same user experience customers receive online and at the checkout, this means offering the same breadth of payment options, and user experience.

This is one reason that we will continue to see more omnichannel payment initiatives launching in the coming months. Another reason is that consumer purchasing habits are changing, preferring a more blended experience of online and offline interactions. Keeping cards on file, the growth of mobile payments, and improvement in mPOS technology payments are continuing to merge.  

Consumers demand invisible payments.

Offline, consumers are frequently comfortable with the concept of invisible payments. Apps such as Uber, where a consumer receives an experience and can walk away without having to worry about payment, receipts, tips, and change, have redefined best-practice for seamless payments. Similarly to Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Go continues to grab the notice of shoppers; 16 stores are now open in the US, and Amazon has said that there will be a massive scale expansion in 2020. And several start-ups are replicating the Amazon model.

As these types of payments become more commonplace in 2020, consumers will increasingly demand this exciting new way to pay. Expect the number of real-world retailers and assistance providers looking to imitate this model to increase substantially in the next 12 months.

Moving beyond two-factor authentication

The deadline for implementing Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) has been pushed to December 2020, but that has not prevented biometric authentication for payments from growing in importance. In Lost in Transaction: The end of risk? 48% of consumers told us that they had authenticated a payment using fingerprint, facial recognition, or voice-activated technology. Among consumers aged 18-24, adoption rates are significantly higher (69%). But this isn’t the end of the online payment authentication course. As users continue to demand more security and, at the same time, frequently frictionless checkouts, technologies that leverage other more passive authentication factors such a location, time of transaction, and even predicted behavior will come to the fore. And there will be even more exciting developments in the next year on top of these, but surely, this gives you a taste of what we’re expecting to see take the payments world by storm in the next 12 months. 

For more information on NFC/Contactless secure devices that are ready for the future, contact us at 877-423-8637