Focus on the Evolving Landscape: The Rise of Contactless Payments: A Post-Pandemic Trend

Abstract

The payment industry as a whole may be significantly impacted. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected almost everything, causing a tsunami of changes in a variety of businesses. The epidemic has also led to a decrease in physical interaction amongst family members and an increase in social distancing behaviours. In many regions of the world, this has also led to a decrease in the use of currency. These are only a few instances of how the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed consumer behaviour and put retailers in danger of going out of business. The whole world nowadays is getting digitalized and payments through mobile phones have become the easiest mode of payment, replacing the primitive modes of payment. The technological advancements have made it necessary for today’s consumer to be dependent on mobile since it is faster, easier and handy to do the day-to-day transactions using their mobile phones. The Government of India initiative toward ‘Digital India’ and increased use of mobile and internet are the main reasons for the exponential growth in use of digital payment. As a result, this accelerated shift in consumer payment behavior from traditional banks and financial service providers to electronic payment. Digital payment firms such as Google pay, PhonePe, Paytm, Amazon Pay and others have seen nearly 50% spike in transactions through their digital wallets since the start of the covid-19 crisis. This has led them to focus on the payment instrument, which was disrupted by challenges due to know-your-customer (KYC) norms and the growth of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in the country.