The Future of Payments: One Lesson From the Pandemic

Before the pandemic, we would make our payments with cash or debit/credit cards. In fact, before the pandemic, it was completely normal to carry cash in our wallets.

But then came social distancing and with it a series of recommendations adopted by populations, governments, companies, stores and everyone in between. One of those recommendations was to avoid paying with cash.

It was our first glimpse of the future of payments, one that two years after the confinement continues to see new options from multiple players and services extended to everyone who uses smartphones and apps. A few examples include mobile wallets, mobile payments known as CoDi, launched by the Bank of Mexico, and all the actions led by fintechs like Fintonic.

In fact, fintech’s flag is that they offer financial services with all the agility and efficiency that people need, without the obstacles that are usually associated with traditional banks. The truth is that fintech growth can be seen all around the world.

Transactions, loans and virtual deposits, among other financial options, are all possible through fintech and a cellphone, and the trend will evolve because of our society’s growing interest in digitalism and virtuality, arenas that in the past were assumed to cater to only those who were in touch with interactive digital worlds and VR.

Let’s think for a minute about music. Past generations went to the record store and bought entire physical albums just for a pair of tracks that they really wanted. Nowadays, it’s just a matter of subscribing to a music streaming service to enjoy the tracks that we want to hear. In other words, we set aside the record store and the physical format through digitalism, while also optimizing our money (why buy an entire album if it is possible to pay a monthly subscription in exchange for seemingly endless mountains of virtual music?).

It’s the same with the future of payments. We are on the way to a cashless society in which banks will be set aside while people have an entire plethora of digital options to pay, save and optimize money.

Fintonic’s credit card is another example of a fintech launching initiatives that benefit users of traditional banks who are getting tired of old formats and who desire immediate and friendlier solutions.

The pandemic changed our view of the entire world. Despite the tragedy, we will continue to observe the ways that technology and digitalism are transforming even the way we save money.