[1] As our lives have suddenly gone digital, so have our payments: there has been a surge in online payments and a shift towards contactless payments in shops. [2] So it is natural for people to expect and embrace changes in the way they pay.
According to the ECB’s new payments survey,[3] cash remains the most common way of making small retail payments, with cash payments accounting for 73% of all physical retail payments in 2019. But almost half of consumers said they prefer to pay digitally, and this has increased further during the pandemic. This trend is unlikely to be reversed once the pandemic is over.