It is unlikely that in the next two years plastic credit cards will cease to be popular and will be replaced by virtual counterparts. This was announced to Izvestia by Anastasia Uskova, CEO of the Fast River fintech platform, on Thursday, January 20.
Earlier in the day, Andrey Spivakov, Managing Director for Retail Credit Products at Raiffeisenbank, expressed his opinion that in the next few years plastic credit cards will be replaced by virtual counterparts. According to him, equality between physical and virtual cards will come in 2022. And within a couple of years, physical carriers of loans will lose their relevance. He believes that no more than 15% of citizens will want to continue using a physical bank card.
For the user, according to Uskova, the rejection of plastic “promises only benefits.” Virtual cards are convenient, they are impossible to lose and very difficult to compromise, since the data is transmitted by payment services in a secure form, and the details are hidden. All this calls into question the existence of ordinary plastic.
The expert noted that the issue of virtual bank cards is growing, but they are often opened in addition to regular plastic – for daily purchases or secure transactions on the Internet. However, it takes more time to change user habits, she says. It is also important to equalize the conditions for the use of virtual and plastic cards, the specialist emphasized.
Now many banks set limits on the amount and number of transactions performed on virtual cards per month, which is not very convenient for the main means of payment, Uskova emphasized.
“Rejection of plastic in favor of digital analogues is a natural process. On the one hand, the ESG agenda is getting louder and louder, which dictates the rejection of plastic, on the other hand, the issue of plastic cards is a costly business, unlike the release of virtual machines, ”the CEO of Fast River stated.
She said that contactless forms of payment are gaining popularity: Pay-services and NFC-chips. They are “registered” even in the most budget smartphones and in the future, with cheaper technologies, it will not work at all to find a smartphone without an NFC chip, the expert believes. She also urged not to discount the growing popularity of payment by QR codes – for such transactions, only a camera is needed, and every smartphone definitely has it.
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
