
How Has Payment Technology Developed Over Time?
CIO Review APAC | Sunday, January 03, 2021

FREMONT, CA: Over the previous few decades, payment experiences have shifted dramatically. Improved technology, customer convenience demands, security precautions, and regulatory changes have contributed to how people pay for goods and services. If people look back in time, cash was the primary means of payment for a while. Soon afterwards, checks became a viable choice for large ticket purchases, freeing buyers from carrying as much cash. Then came plastic credit and debit cards, enabling people to carry a lighter wallet with greater purchasing power.
Customers today have a variety of payment choices, ranging from cash to credit cards and contactless payments. They can even pay or utilise peer-to-peer (P2P) programmes such as Venmo by scanning a QR code with their smartphones in specific instances.
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Above all, these standard payment methods have grown into something greater than themselves—they've become critical to giving customers a unique shopping experience. However, payments did not evolve overnight, and numerous technical breakthroughs have permanently altered the way people pay:
Contactless Payment: Contactless payments increase the payment process's speed, security, and convenience. Contactless cards have been widely used in Europe and Canada, allowing users to pay by tapping their cards on payment acceptance machines. While contactless cards are new, mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay utilise the same technology to enable customers to tap and pay with their phones. Biometric authentication on mobile wallets adds another degree of payment security. Apart from these user benefits, when combined with value-added services (VAS), mobile wallets can also assist retailers in managing loyalty programmes more efficiently. The COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the adoption of contactless payments (cards and mobile wallets) in 2020 as a convenient way to pay for purchases without touching payment acceptance equipment physically. It increased transaction speed and provided shoppers with peace of mind by providing a more secure payment method.
P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Applications: Numerous peer-to-peer (P2P) programmes, such as Venmo, Zelle, Apple Pay Cash, and PayPal, are already popular with consumers as a convenient method of money transmission. In other instances, these applications have linked with third-party services, such as ridesharing or food delivery apps to make payment easier for clients. These connections have enabled businesses to leverage this well-known payment option to improve the consumer experience.
Biometrics Payments: Biometric payment technology has evolved significantly over the past few years and may now be found in various configurations. One of the most prevalent examples is phone-based: users use their fingerprint or facial scanner on their cellphones to authenticate the transmission of payment information (through contactless) to a terminal during the checkout process. Other non-phone-based biometric payment options may need the retailer to install additional hardware to capture biometric information to authenticate the payment.
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