The Rise of Digital Payment systems

 Hi Everyone and welcome back to my weekly blog post!

This week I am sharing a fascinating topic with you -  The rise of digital payment systems.Digital payments are payments that happen electronically. Popular payment systems include credit and debit cards, phone payments such as Google Pay, and modern-day currencies like Bitcoin.

E-commerce in the early 2000s kickstarted the rise in digital payment systems - people would use their debit/ credit cards to make payments. Technology has advanced past debit cards - Contactless payments are the name of the game in today's world! Digital wallets allow consumers to store their bank cards on their smartphones and smart watches. Using near-field communication technology (NFC) a chip from the customer's device signals to a chip in the seller's card machine to carry out the transaction.

The  COVID-19 pandemic helped further popularise this technology as consumers made the switch from cash as recommended by governments to prevent transmission. (Kale, 2020). As the rise in digital payments increases, the use of cash decreases. Today, Fewer than one in five payments are made in cash (Frontier Economics).

A digital payment system is beneficial to customers as opposed to cash because of :

•  Convenience
• Security
• Tracking spending
• Allows for seamless currency conversion

I recommend watching this video for more benefits:
The Perks and Risks of Digital Payment Apps | WSJ Your Money Briefing (youtube.com)

Although handy I would like to try convince you to use both digital payments and cash.

Why losing cash is a bad thing:

1. No privacy of spending
2. Governments have more control
3. I.T failures / hacking
4. The cost of fees being charged by banks for transactions is added to the final price reducing our purchasing power.

Consumer demand is very high for contactless but I feel many are choosing short-term convenience over their longer-term privacy and freedom. 

I would agrue that emerging technology Bitcoin and the Blockchain are safer alternatives than a digital euro which will happen if people don't re-evaluate their behaviors.

Feel free to click this link for an unbiased opinion: A cashless society: what are the pros and cons? | Unbiased

Thanks for checking out this weeks blog!