Digitisation in the world of payments: trends in 2018

As the dust settles on 2017, the time has come to look at the year ahead. What will 2018 bring in the world of payments? Will the hype around blockchain be justified? Will we see cash drop further in popularity?

PaymentEye asked Ralf Ohlhausen, Business Development Director, PPRO group, for his payments predictions for 2018.


 

The PPRO Payment Trend Grid is a visual representation of our predictions for the key online payment trends for the year ahead. Digitisation in the world of payments is progressing quickly with several key developments set to make waves in 2018.

 

(Click grid to enlarge)

2017 was the year of cryptocurrencies, one of our ‘futurist’ technologies. 2018 will see more use cases of blockchain technologies, which will facilitate the development of more innovative financial solutions in 2018. Institutions will use it to establish more direct connections, thus reducing the need for intermediaries like correspondence banks.

Another trend set to continue to grow from 2017 is the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and subsequently, the Internet of Payments. According to Gartner, there will be an increase from 8.3 billion connected devices in 2017 to a predicted 20.8 billion devices in 2020. With technology enhancing year on year, consumers are increasingly expecting their IoT devices to enable more than just carrying out tasks automatically; they also expect them to transact – including payments.

In 2018 payment processes will be increasingly integrated into peer-to-peer (P2P) messaging or other systems – another one of our ‘futurist’ payment trends. Mobile numbers or email addresses will replace the hard to remember IBANs where possible, and new voice input technologies, such as Alexa, Siri and Cortana, mean that many payments and banking transactions will soon be carried out without writing anything at all, making the consumer experience even simpler.

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