2 Trends in payments Trend 1: Digitalisation Our economy is growing more digital by the day. Business processes are becoming increasingly automated and interdependent. Complex value chains arise. The “Internet of Things” enables machine-to-machine communication. E-commerce and online services of all kinds are about to 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  experience an enormous uptake due to the pandemic.
The pace of digitalisation has probably never been faster than today. These developments are increasingly calling for a safe and efficient settlement asset which can be seamlessly integrated into almost any kind of business process. Trend 2: Declining use of cash Parallel to this, we can see that the use of cash is waning, even in Germany.