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Post COVID-19 Impact on Alternative Payment Methods 2021

“Digital wallet” was the leading alternative online payment method in Indonesia, while “credit card” was the least popular, as of the first half of 2020. Read more about the alternative payment market worldwide amid and post-COVID-19 in the new yStats.com publication “Global Alternative Payment Methods 2021 Post COVID-19”.

 

With the onset of COVID-19, businesses and consumers adopted alternative payments, which were considered to be convenient, fast, contactless and accessible.  While traditional payments such as cash and credit/debit cards still prevail, alternative payments including QR code, biometric checkout and cryptocurrency have a promising future. Among the accelerating non-traditional payment options was Buy Now Pay Later, which was gradually growing in 2020 as 3 in 10 of individuals globally used this option when making online payments, as of August 2020. Consumers planned to increase the usage of BNPL even further in the future.

In the US, the percentage of those who were very likely to use this payment service rose by 12 percentage points between July 2020 and March 2021, with the most common reason for using this solution being the clarity of fees and interest rates. Among the top BNPL service providers worldwide are Afterpay, Zip Co, Klarna, PayPal Credit, Tabby and Tamara that witnessed an enhancement in the usage and raised high funding amounts in 2020. The BNPL solution was more likely to be preferred by the younger generation, namely, in Australia, individuals of the 25-34 age group in May 2020 held the highest penetration rate of 18%. In addition, the BNPL service was mostly preferred to be used online rather than in-store, for example, in Germany, almost 60% of the surveyed in 2020 used BNPL online and 56% intended to use it online further.

Another widespread alternative payment was cryptocurrency. Crypto existed prior to the pandemic, however, with its onset, consumers’ interest in its use enhanced with nearly 70% of consumers worldwide more open to using cryptocurrency compared to a year earlier, according to a March 2021 survey cited by the new yStats.com report. In the US, the crypto adoption rate was slightly over 11% of the adult population, which was higher than the global average of 3% in 2020. In Turkey, the percentage of cryptocurrency owners was 16% in the first quarter of 2020. PayPal was chosen as the most trusted digital payment platform to make investments in or purchases with cryptocurrency in the US, as of 2021.

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