Digital payment solutions have been viewed as substitutes for cash for several years. However, the situation generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has advanced its dominance. Thus, applications such as Apple Pay, increasingly available in more countries, and other similar services had their best year in 2020.
According to a report from Merchant Solutions “The global pandemic has brought a cashless future on the horizon” .Specific, The use of cash fell 10% in 2020, accounting for only a fifth of all face-to-face payments worldwide.
Cash usage decreases every year
Asia and pacific are the leaders in the use of digital wallets and around the 40% of payments in stores in the region are made through contactless payments.
The use of the mobile wallet has also grown in all regions of the world and now accounts for approximately 10% of in-store payments in North America, 8% in the Middle East and Africa, 7% in Europe and 6% in Latin America.
Canada, United Kingdom, France, Norway, Sweden, United States and Australia, were among the leading countries in this change of habit, where the use of cash for in-store payments has been halved or more. While cash payments in the United States also accounted for 1 trillion in-store payments last year, up from $ 1.4 trillion in 2019.
From this list, several countries have had Apple Pay and other digital wallets, such as Samsung Pay and Google Pay, also for a while.
The study predicts that by 2024, Cash will account for less than 10% of in-store payments in the United States
At the World level, digital wallets also remain the preferred payment method for e-commerce consumerssince they represent 44.5% of the volume of e-commerce transactions in 2020.
In e-commerce, total spending rose 19% last year to $ 4.6 trillion, the biggest increase in five years, according to the study.