Our Bureau FIS, a provider of technology solutions for merchants, banks and capital markets firms globally, sees a 30-40 per cent shift towards ‘contactless’ payments in the Indian payments landscape over the next 8-12 months largely due to Covid-19.
“You are going to see a marked increase in contactless payments in the aftermath of Covid-19 given the increased concern on hygiene. The shift will also happen due to the convenience of contactless,” Mahesh Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, APMEA — Banking and Payments, FIS, said at a virtual conference to discuss the findings of the PACE PULSE 2020 survey.
Ramamoorthy said this shift will be largely driven by consumers in the 25-40 years age group and one will also see the elder generation start to embrace small-value contactless payments, or mobile-based QR payments.
“A lot of acquirers are today shifting gears to enable merchants start to acquire contactless capabilities — static QR or by way of PoS terminals. Issuers are now starting to issue cards with contactless capabilities. This trend is starting to pick up. In the next six to eight months, you will see significant overdrive from banks and issuers starting to get into the mode of contactless capabilities,” he said.
Digital gameplan
The adoption of contactless payments is going to be a huge positive for India in its ongoing digital payments gameplan, he added.
He further said the shift towards contactless payments would get accelerated if both issuers and acquirers can give comfort to consumers on the security front across all age groups.
The survey covered 2,000 Indians across India.