The Payments World after COVID-19

01 / 06 / 2022

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis which has already had huge societal and economic impacts. Business leaders face difficult choices about how best to bring about what is now the essential digitisation of their service delivery in order to survive.

In this paper, we outline the immediate impacts of the pandemic using our deep insights from working with clients across a wide range of sectors. We then present our vision for the lasting changes that will emerge as accelerated long-term trends for society, businesses, and the way we use technology. By sharing this vision, we want to help business leaders start planning for this future today, aided by our insights into how these trends will unfold in the coming years.

We first explore the immediate impacts of the crisis. These include essential digitisation, an increase in online retail, acceleration of cashless payments, and a rise in omnichannel. Next we describe what we believe will be the key lasting impacts, ranging from new attitudes to environmental sustainability and data privacy, through to the adaptation of supply chains and cost-management. By understanding these lasting impacts,

we reach conclusions about which technologies will see accelerated relevance, and how organisations can prepare for these changes. Finally, we summarise the key takeaways that business leaders can use to start adapting their strategies now.

No one can predict the future. No one can say how long or how deep this crisis will be. And no one can say with certainty how the world will recover from it or, indeed, whether we will see repeated waves of infection. However, we believe that the trends are now sufficiently clear to enable businesses to start preparing for the new normal, enabling them to be more successful in the post COVID-19 world.