The payments sector is undergoing a period of change, accelerated by the growing use of smartphones to pay and get paid. The big night is not for tomorrow, but the year 2024 will be marked, like the previous ones, by new trends bypassing the use of bank cards for everyday payments.
The smartphone, everywhere and all the time
The phenomenon, obviously, is very variable, depending on age or social category. However, the years 2022 and 2023 were marked by a real take-off of contactless mobile payment, which showed 3-digit growth. We will not (yet) predict the end of the plastic bank card, but nothing seems able to counter this trend in 2024.
What does the smartphone have that the card doesn’t have to pay for? In the immediate future, not much: the added value of a service like Apple Pay, which is nevertheless gaining popularity, remains relatively limited. It just allows you to do away with the secret code (we’ll come back to that) and to pay contactless with no limit on amount.
But other wallets are already working on much richer payment experiences. With Apple Pay, we change the gesture, but not the function. We want to move from function to experience, where payment is just one of the elements of a purchasing journey enriched with different components: loyalty, vouchers, receipts, etc., explains Christophe Dolique, president of the French fintech Lyf. Example: the French mobile wallet offers, in partner restaurants, pay in one click from your tablewithout checking out.
Contactless payment: 3 new features for paying the bill at the restaurant
In 2024, mobile will not only be used to make payments, but also to receive them. The time, in fact, is smartphone as a payment terminal. Since last November, a simple iPhone can accept contactless payments. This was already the case for Android mobiles.
Result: thanks to this technology, called SoftPOS in the jargon, any merchant, even the smallest, will be able to accept contactless payments, anywhere, anytime. Retailers will look for ways to transact anywhere within the four walls of their stores, from the fitting room and aisles to the checkout, says Ingenico, a global payment technology giant, in a newsletter . THE mobile point of sale could also be used in a broader sense, such as accepting outside payments, for example, to avoid queues at the drive-thru or to sell in a pop-up store during an event.
The rise of account payment
The bank card is not just a piece of plastic. It is also the ssame allowing the use of a acceptance network (CB, Visa, or Mastercard) whose role is in particular to guarantee the merchant that he will be paid well. This poses at least two problems. The first: access to these networks is not free, it is even more and more expensive and therefore contributes to inflation, since traders pass on its cost to their selling prices. In the field of payment cards, merchants are (…) attentive to changes in costs (…), confirms the Mercatel federation in a newsletter.
SNCF, Cdiscount, Auchan… You risk paying more because of your bank card
The answer to this problem is called instant SEPA transfer. Or, to use an expression that better reveals its potential, account payment account. The current system is complex and not very transparent, with a maximum of intermediaries who each take a commission. You can do without it thanks to the SEPA transfer, confirms Pascal Cotte, general manager for France of Satispay, a very popular payment app in Italy, which connects the customer’s bank with the merchant’s bank without intermediaries and pays the latter thanks to the SEPA transfer. a simple, quick transaction.
The transfer, instant and irreversible from account to account, is not exactly new: it has existed in Europe since 2017, under the leadership of European institutions. In France, its development has however been hampered by the choice of banks to make users pay the cost of its development. Thus, an instant transfer still costs almost one euro each on average. But it’s soon over: by the end of the year, the entry into force of a new European regulation will prohibit charging more for an instant transfer than a traditional transfer.
Instant transfer: fees banned from 2024?
This strong evolution towards free will allow many uses to grow. The possibilities of instant transfer, in fact, go far beyond just small peer-to-peer payments, for which it is best known for the moment. It is entirely possible to use it to pay for online or in-store purchases.
This year’s launch of the mobile wallet Wero, supported by a group of European banks, will constitute the first stage of this project, which will take some time. (…) It will be necessary (…) to convince customers and convert them to new payment ergonomics, analyzes Mercatel in a newsletter. The technology chosen, both that of the QR code for all interaction channels, clear, strong and educational communication coupled with a promise with new functionalities will prove necessary to engage customers towards new payment uses, more modern, personalized and interactive.
Future alternative Visa and Mastercard, European payment being tested in France
The beginning of the end of secret codes
The growing use of smartphones to pay has another consequence: it gets us used to without a secret code to authenticate our payments. Now all you have to do is put your finger down or show your face to your phone.
The rise of biometric payments is therefore another sign of the times. It could even allow you to do without a mobile. Technologies, already common in Asia, are arriving in France. They allow a payment to be authenticated by simply placing his hand on a scanner or by setting a notch. Consumers who create an account, by securely associating their scans with account information, can make payments even if they do not have physical cards or even a handbag or wallet, details Ingenico in a newsletter.
Instead of a bank card, would you be willing to pay contactless with the palm of your hand?