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Building a Cashless Economy For Secure Payment Encourages POS (Point of Sales) Terminals Market

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Steve Blade

The world is rapidly moving towards building a cashless economy and rapidly adopting credit cards, debit cards and online transactions to minimize the physical cash transaction. Secure payment systems help in the development of world economy; thus, all countries are encouraging the adoption of convenient, secure and affordable payment systems.

Countries such as Singapore, the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Canada are among the top countries with cashless transactions. Whereas developing countries such as China and India have only 10% and 2% cashless transactions respectively. However, government steps towards cash less society is expected to bring positive opportunities for point of sale (POS) terminals market. In 2016, cashless transaction volume grew by nearly 11% to reach over USD 430 billion.

Encouragement towards digital and enhanced payment systems with better security measures are propelling the growth of non-cash transaction and thereby resulting in the demand for POS terminals. Over 20 billion credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards worldwide are present in 2016 which is expected to reach over 26 billion during the forecast period.

Booming retail and hospitality sector are supporting the ongoing demand for POS terminals market. Furthermore, the flexibility of having a smartphone- or tablet-based POS, due to low installation costs, has attracted small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to invest in mPOS system.

How Could Global POS (Point of Sales) Terminals Market address COVID-19 concern?

As part of the COVID-19 outbreak, central banks have resorted to quarantining physical bills and some are even going so far as to burn banknotes. South Korea’s central bank, the Bank of Korea, has implemented a quarantine policy for physical notes that come in from local banks. They’ll keep banknotes in a safe for up to two weeks, given “that the [SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 disease] virus usually dies in nine days.”

Further, Chinese lenders were asked by the government to both disinfect bills and keep them in a safe for up to 14 days, depending on what region they came from. The Federal Reserve has also begun setting aside US dollar banknotes from Asia for 7-10 days before recirculating them into the economy. The Bank of England has acknowledged that banknotes in circulation can hold “bacteria and viruses” and recommended that people wash their hands after handling money.

This is why, among other reasons, the CDC is so rigorous about handwashing as a way to reduce infections in general. Well-maintained handwashing reduces respiratory diseases, such as colds, in the general population by 16-21% according to the CDC.

It is clear that central banks are thinking about how their rules can apply to digital currencies — and in the absence of deliberate action and the continued growth of the cryptocurrency community, the only true viable alternative to analog cash will be digital currencies that replicate the current financial system, bound to central banks that have increasingly resorted to desperate measures to keep economies going, including negative interest rate policy.

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Steve Blade
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