Developments in Online Payments System and Customer Trends Towards Intermediaries

As businesses move towards competing in the digital space through sleek websites and convenient apps, more and more, customers are taking to online purchases and using specialised online systems to complete those payments. As a result, customers are exploring more competitors and demanding more from their payment service providers.

Spurring this is the surge in real time payments, alongside a growing acceptance of the convenience of non-traditional payment providers. After all, real-time payments look set to be a feature in 27 per cent of all electronic payments by 2028. People want to leverage the full scope of the internet and all of its quick and convenient potential when paying for goods. This has helped to drive customers towards intermediaries.

Decoupling and Digital Wallets

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As online points of contact like browsers and apps become faster and more secure, an equal and often greater expectation will be placed on payment systems. Further, the incredibly vast and varied space that is the internet will encourage customers to explore their options for everything – including their potential payment methods. This allows tech-driven payment firms to differentiate themselves and attack key areas head-on.

Those that offer outstanding convenience, security, and affordability are seen as the ones that’ll win what is currently quite a congested race. Each of those three elements is key and has helped to drive the increasing user bases of several now-leading brands. PayPal took decades to establish its now-mighty reputation as one of the forerunners in the digital wallets field, allowing for the likes of Klarna to emerge much more quickly since.

Now, there’s a clear shift taking place among customers. They’re progressively looking to these decoupled options that offer a disconnect from bank accounts and card details. By 2030, this will help to push digital payments to account for nearly 80 per cent of all eCommerce payments. Already, the number of global digital wallet users is on track to hit 5.4 billion by 2028. For businesses, this creates a need to embrace the trend.

Vendors Embracing the Variety

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While PayPal was given as the example above, there are now several different digital wallets with vast audiences and offering different perks as a part of their respective services. Businesses need to recognise this as being the state of play and that a diverse selection only helps to lean into what’s driving this trend: convenience. It’s because of this that plenty of online platforms now accept multiple forms of these online payment methods.

For example, for online entertainment platforms that require real money deposits, Skrill and PayPal now headline the collection of traditional and more modern payment methods that can be used for playing video slots. Depositing through these eWallets grants immediate funds to the user’s balance so that they can instantly play the likes of Big Bass Floats My Boat and Lucky Lemons. However, there are also other options like debit cards and prepaid cards, like Paysafecard, to grow the options further.

This showcases a selection of traditional and digital payment methods for paying for a product or service directly. You can also see this in play at major online retail and grocery stores, too, like Next and Waitrose. The latest trend, however, is using one of these intermediaries to split payments. Klarna has soared in popularity as the headline act of the Buy Now, Pay Later movement, combining the convenience of split payments within the eWallet procedure.

Customers are increasingly relying on new payment tech and intermediaries to secure purchases, and to keep up, businesses need to catch the trend and bolster their options with as many of these as is feasible.