Impact of COVID-19 on Contactless Payments
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What’s Next In Contactless Payments Innovation
After almost two decades, contactless payments have finally turned a point in the U.S.. Unfortunately, it took a staggering pandemic to wake up consumers and merchants to the benefits that have been long realized in other developed markets.
For us, it all started with a spike in early March, when we saw 38% of consumers reporting that a contactless credit card feature was a Table Stake in selecting and using their card. At the time, this was a 26% spike compared to pre-Covid levels. Two months later, Visa reported that 31 million U.S. consumers chose to to pay with a contactless card or digital wallet in March, compared to 25 million the prior month. Remarkably, this was a 24% increase over the prior month.
Now that contactless payments are becoming mainstream, there are many opportunities for innovation, With our work, we engage consumers on seemingly distant concepts like Biochips that are being embraced in Sweden, as well as near term opportunities like QR Menus that integrate a contactless order and payment experience that seems essential in a post-Covid world.
As we think about our daily life as consumers, where every interaction has been impacted by the pandemic, we can easily point to moments like fueling up where contactless payments can make our lives easier and safer.
ExxonMobil, and more recently 7-Eleven, announced Connected Car pilots for contactless fuel purchases, As you drive up to your neighborhood gas station, you can use your car’s audio system to indicate how much gas you want and then complete your transaction using your voice and without taking out your wallet or opening your car window. The entire experience is enabled by Amazon’s Alexa for Exxon, and by Apple’s Siri for 7-Eleven.
Here is a view of how big this opportunity is relative to the more traditional contactless card application. This analysis is based on more than 12,000 consumer interviews and highlights the appetite for the Connected Car Fuel Purchase as well as the impact that it will have on driving primacy for the attached payment option.
Want to learn more?
We engage thousands of U.S. consumers in ongoing evaluation of every payments option currently available on the market as well as innovative concepts that may be rolled out in the near future. With more than 500,000 consumer payment feature evaluations, and growing, we can help you identify opportunity for how to keep your products relevant in a market that has been turned upside down by the pandemic.
About The Futurist Group
The Futurist Group helps identify what’s next in payments, using modern technology, frictionless consumer engagement, and intelligent analytics to provide answers to the most important and forward-looking questions about the future of payments. Dedicated to the financial services space, The Futurist Group was founded by an experienced team of professionals from consumer intelligence, fintech, banking, analytics, and payments.
About Pi-360
A proprietary Product Innovation Intelligence Platform that maps and analyzes the entire competitive landscape through the lens of ongoing and structured consumer reviews. Imagine knowing everything that you need to know about your competitor’s products, emerging innovation, and consumer needs without waiting for research.
Sources for this blog: The Futurist Group, Visa, PaymentsJournal
Note: All brand names and logos are the property of their respective owners, are used for identification purposes only, and do not imply product endorsement or affiliation
