PAYMENT SOLUTIONS
Top five third-party digital payment platforms expanding in 2021
# 1
Stripe
# 2
Sage Pay
# 3
Shopify
# 4
Paypal
“ Cash withdrawals ... remain well below previous levels . By the second week of October [ 2020 ] ATM volumes and values were still about 40 % and 30 % lower respectively than the previous year .”
BANK OF ENGLAND
Lennon says that in the past year alone , CleverCards has experienced a 10-fold growth rate – a situation that would be largely unheard of in pre-pandemic times . “ In Western Europe , banks are closing regional branches and removing cash services from a large cohort of their remaining branch network , which will reduce the availability of cash in society . In addition , the availability of low cost point of sales terminals and mobile phone point of sale enablement will help small business shift to digital payment acceptance .”
# 5 Amazon Pay
Some countries are already embracing the cashless society , with Sweden predicted to be ‘ proudly ’ cash-free by 2023 . Currently , according to the Swedish Central Bank , 80 % of Swedes use cards , and only 6 % of the population still use cash .
Lennon says , “ I think that the trends in digitally advanced countries like Norway and Sweden illustrate that very low levels of cash usage are possible and the above conditions are broadly met . Within the next decade it is likely that some of the Nordic countries may shift to 100 % cashless society .”
But these shifts are still in the minority , as cultural climates and banking markets vary greatly between nations . “ Certain countries will not go completely cashless for the foreseeable future for cultural reasons , such as low trust in banks and government and a large black market cash economy ,” points out Lennon .
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