CIO Review APAC

Digital Payment Alternative Now a Requirement

CIO Review APAC | Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Over the past few years, the world has taken some eventful steps aiming at the greater good of the economy, working towards a cashless society. The acceptance and normalisation of digital payment methods have become precise and stronger with government guidelines and seamless for the common man.

FREMONT, CA:The future of money is foreseen as a digital bliss by many. A terrene where all financial agreements are carried out exclusively without any duplicates, providing a flexible cashless society. Hierarchically, traditional banking and physical cash have taken a back seat, and digital currencies have come to the foreground notably due to the pandemic, hastening fundamental changes in the way humans modulate and operate their money.

With the looming of the internet, digital payments have become an inescapable concept. While the use of cash is depreciating, digital payments are gaining momentum since the commencement of the bankers’ automated clearing system (BACS) in the 1960s to the 21st century.

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Digital payments are now a standard practice and the whole idea of digital payment has changed in the span of a few decades from whether to use digital payments to how can it be faster and more secure. This revolution of the financial prospect will certainly have earnest implications for government, business and society. As the number of bank branches and automated teller machines (ATMs) decreases, so does access to cash. Digital payments are widespread, and the several wallets that were available previously have consolidated, with Apple, Google, and PayPal dominating.

Apart from addressing data privacy concerns, digital payment platforms must build trust with customers to equalise the playing field. These platforms are bound to guarantee the security of their systems whilst multiplying acceptance by business owners who might suspect the mechanism and suffer extra implementation costs. Harmony in payment systems is a challenge in today’s global economy.

The growing availability of digital payment systems, such as peer-to-peer payments, mobile wallets, mobile point-of-sale devices, and digital coins, provides businesses and customers with a plethora of alternatives, each promising transparency, efficiency, and convenience. Cashless payment systems can encourage economic growth by making payments simple and convenient, hence, facilitating consumption. By decreasing manual reconciliation, counting, and cash handling, as well as the expense to the government of issuing real currency, they can also help businesses save time and money.

Fundamentally, digitising the payment process is advantageous where anyone with a smartphone can hypothetically make cross-border payments and purchases cost-effectively and efficiently.

From the viewpoint of macroeconomics, a central bank which controls digital currencies can circumvent exchange rate risk and currency elusiveness if they are based on a range of currencies. Similarly, if centrally backed, digital currencies, like traditional currency, can be used as economic levers. These benefits, of course, are in addition to the obvious cost savings from not having to produce coins and notes. On the other hand, despite all of the significant benefits that a variety of digital payment options provide, a key challenge is their interoperability and integration by businesses. In a future where digital payments are widely accepted and the norm, users may be required to use multiple services, potentially reducing the utility of such payments.

While traditional banks with legacy systems may find the digital transformation process intimidating, the rise of digital currencies, FinTech payment solutions, and other similar technologies signifies that financial institutions (FIs) must rethink how to make their services compatible with an increasingly digital world. It is the responsibility of central banks, not individual financial institutions, to respond to digital currencies and FinTech solutions. State-backed digital currencies run the risk of causing deposits to be held directly with a central bank, but they also present the possibility of decentralised opportunities. A set of application program interfaces (APIs) from Visa may allow conventional banks to function as cryptocurrency exchanges.

While technological advancements have made financial transactions on computers and mobile devices so seamless that they are now taken for granted, people should be alert while using them in the future. Digital payments are likely to become more popular and widely used in a post-pandemic world. 

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