Let’s diversify contactless payments

To mitigate against the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments and global health bodies have thrown in a raft of precautions and protocols. But individual responsibility is key.

Take, for instance, daily monetary transactions.  Payment methods are getting ‘cleaner’ with more people adopting contactless payments. Perhaps, this cleanliness aspect is the silver lining of the pandemic, besides the several innovations and discoveries in the medical world.

Central banks in countries like China and South Korea often disinfect banknotes and quarantine others in a bid to contain spread of the coronavirus.

Some of these institutions have requested people to minimise usage of cash payments despite scientific studies showing minimal risks in Covid-19 transmissions via cash payments. Despite some of these assurances, people have remained apprehensive. However, the risks of other frequently touched means of payments remain higher. A candid way must be championed where everyone feels safe.

Players in the payment services have a huge opportunity to reap in this consumer-driven demand of the Covid-19 crisis. This shift in consumer behaviour has been driven largely by the innovators who see the consumers’ need for safety and not a business shift.

For instance, M-Pesa by Safaricom is a globally celebrated innovation whose vision appears to tick every box but for its associated transactional costs. There is a vast, actually endless, challenge and opportunity to be offered by banks and merchants through players like De La Rue as manufacturers, and card companies such as Visa and MasterCard in ensuring security of such payments remain as watertight as they have been over the years but, more importantly now, the contactless card verification methods.

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE

Building consumer confidence will be key to the sustainability of this model if it has to continue seeing light of the day even in the post-Covid-19 world. Some of the contactless payment systems including smart cards, debit cards and credit cards, or other devices, including smartphones and other mobile devices, that use radio frequency identification or near-field communications or any bank mobile application are alternatives for the consumer bracket who use plastic monies compared to those using liquid cash payment methods. These technologies must not come only at a time of need but be for posterity to make life easier.

Contactless payments will save humanity time, provide a world of infinite possibilities, hygiene and efficiency in financial transactions. This will be revolutionary. Nobody can afford to be left behind in this global ecosystem of payment trends.

Mr Mikwa, communications practitioner, is a research fellow at The New School University in New York. @mwongelaf