On 11th March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. At the time of writing, hundreds of thousands of lives and businesses have been affected. With multiple countries issuing bans on travel across borders and ordering shutdowns of cities and towns, many businesses are seeing the virus take its toll.
By Sunith Menon, Managing Director Ingenico India
Greater use of electronic payments could provide benefits of $470 billion across 100 cities included in a new Visa-commissioned study, a gain that is roughly 3% of their combined GDP.
Sweden lays claims to be the most cashless country on earth, with coins and notes used in less than a fifth of transactions as everyone and everything from public transport to homeless people switch to card or mobile payments.
Researchers expect strong growth for contactless payments in the United States, despite the low adoption figures with American consumers.
Only a quarter of Apple Pay transactions come from its native US, according to Apple’s CFO Luca Maestri.