Hard to kill but cash and cards will fade away eventually

Contactless, wearable, mobile payments will end the use of cash and cards. It’s just taking a long time to kill them.

That’s the view of FinTech guru Chris Skinner. In a blog post, he says: “When I was presenting in the early 2000’s, I was predicting that everything was moving digital, and payments were going to be made by contactless wearable devices, mobile telephones and smart biometrics. The result would be the end of cash, cards, usernames and passwords.”

“Fifteen years later, we still have cash, cards, usernames and passwords, but I would still predict that it’s going to decline and eventually disappear,” he adds.

Skinner points to the fact that PayPal is nearing $1 trillion of payments a year, mobile commerce is worth trillions and in the UK Transport for London is seeing a surge in contactless payments.

Cashless stores

Last week we reported that Tesco had opened its first cashless store, situated in High Holborn, London.

Shoppers are able to use the likes of contactless cards, Tesco Pay+ and Apple Pay at self-service tills. Staff will be on hand to help. This builds on a cashless store trial at a staff-only branch in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.

Retail analyst Bryan Roberts recently went to see what all the fuss was about. He reported that the store was being well received by the majority of customers.

“Shopper throughput at peak times has been reduced and only about five shoppers a day find the cashless aspect to be a dealbreaker,” he said in a LinkedIn post. “Won’t suit every location in London (especially not in tourist areas) but wouldn’t be surprised to see more of these in the future.”