Moving to Mobile

Payments During COVID-19

By Adina Rogoz on May 21, 2020 in Technology

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many changes in daily life, among them how we make routine purchases and conduct retail transactions. The desire for contactless point of sale is greater than ever. Hence the uptick in popularity for digital wallet transactions.

Better known as e-wallets, this type of transaction lets you pay by tapping your phone or by scanning a QR code. The money will then be deducted directly from your bank account or from an e-wallet’s balance.

According to Visa, in the U.S. contactless transactions for grocery and pharmacy have grown more than 100 percent year-over-year with 31 million Americans using a Visa contactless card or digital wallet in March 2020. Overall contactless usage in U.S. was up 150 percent since March 2019.

Most Popular Mobile Apps

The rise of mobile payment begun in 2014 when Apple Pay hit the market, being the only major mobile wallet on the market. Since then, mobile wallets have flooded the market with many companies introducing digital payment including Venmo, Samsung Pay, Chase Pay, Android Pay, Microsoft Wallet, Walmart Pay and Square Wallet among others.

Many apps are default choices depending on which phone you have and the features are much the same on each app meaning that you can download the app for free, upload your credit or debit card and tap to pay with your phone at  retailers that accept the service.

Regarding to security reasons, companies ensure customers that mobile payments are a more secure method than using a physical card for many reasons. First, merchants won’t see your name, credit card number or the authorization code from the back of the card and second, mobile wallets are protected by a lock screen, requiring a PIN number or fingerprint authentication to use.

There are also a few features you can activate in case your phone is stolen or lost. For example, for Apple Pay, the Find My iPhone feature lets you suspend the mobile wallet remotely, while Android Pay users are advised to turn on the Android Device Manager so it can be located if lost or stolen, and locked remotely if needed.

Transactional Wallets in Real Estate

In the real estate sector, Wealth Migrate has created a platform that gives real estate investors access to compound investing—taking returns from an investment and reinvesting them immediately so they also star earning returns—through transactional wallets. A share pays a dividend and it automatically shows up as cash in your wallet after which you can use those money into another share purchase without bank transfers or transfer fees.

E-wallets are no longer just a convenience, but a crucial part of the “new normal” and may even help flatten the curve.