Nayax Webinar Highlights, Cashless Payments – What Do Owners And Operators Need To Know?

Nayax/Visa Webinar Cashless Payments The future of payments in a world that continues to be affected by Coronavirus as well as the state of the cashless payment industry were discussed in a recent webinar by Carly Furman, CEO of Nayax and Jeff Beach VP at Visa.

What Is Driving The Increased Use Of Cashless Payment Systems?

Vending, micro-market, and business owners across the United States knew that the use of cashless payment options was on the rise before Covid-19 but, has the pandemic increased the use and demand for this option?

The answer to this question is yes. Consumers are of course eager to avoid touching surfaces whenever possible and that is one of the primary reasons why they are open to cashless payments. Besides this reason, the use of cashless payments has risen in the United States because the average consumer either has a card or phone in their pocket that they would prefer to use for payments instead of traditional currency.

“Contactless payments have become a preferred payment method in unattended retail” – Jeff Beach

Most consumers stopped carrying cash before Covid-19 so it’s been a natural fit for them to adapt to using cashless payment options for their other transactions, especially in the unattended retail space where cashless payments have been one of the core reasons why this part of the vending industry has succeeded.

Besides helping a business to increase its sales, cashless payments have also been found to offer added benefits to the business as well including being more weather resistant than traditional swipe to pay options.

Where Are Cashless Payments Thriving?

Cashless payments are especially strong in the food and beverage industries where the use of this technology has increased by 20% during Covid-19.

Beach confirmed that Visa is eager to have business owners convert their payment systems from the magnetic stripe data (MSD) readers, to chip readers, because MSD has been in existence since the 1960s and these cards have been found to be ‘hackable’ compared to credit or debits that have the chip.

“EMV chip readers are more effective at protecting data than MSD readers” – Carly Furman

As with moving from 3G to 4G networks, Visa encourages business owners in the United States to upgrade from MSD to chip readers by April 2021 because they plan to stop supporting MSD payment technology in the United States.

Europe has led the way with the adoption of cashless payment technology, including tap to pay technology. Beach confirmed that tap to pay transactions are growing at a rate of 100% per year anywhere this technology is in use because consumers feel comfortable and have accepted it.

New York MTA Is Utilizing Tap To Pay

Tap to pay is already in widespread use in New York, thanks to the New York MTA that started converting all of their payment terminals to tap to pay at the end of 2019 and they expect to be finished with this conversion by 2023.

Even though tap to pay is on the rise, some consumers are still hesitant about using this technology, and chip readers in general, due to the potential of card fraud.

Furman confirmed that the latest cashless payment technology from Nayax is safer to use than traditional MSD readers. Beach agreed and said that Visa also has a full–time staff fighting credit card fraud around the world and their goal is to stop it as quickly as possible whenever cases pop up because Visa wants to increase acceptance of their cards anywhere payments are made.

Lessons Learned

Regardless if you have a micro-market, vending route, or traditional storefront business, if you’re still using an old school card reader that requires your customers to swipe their cards, you should upgrade to the latest technology as soon as possible

Why? The traditional MSD card readers will become a thing of the past in 2021, along with 3G networks, so you should upgrade your payment system as soon as possible, especially if you are eager to grow your businesses and capitalize on the demand for contactless payment technology in 2021 and beyond.

By Jeff Adair, Editor

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