CASH IS EXPENSIVE AND RISKY

JELENA RISTIĆ, COUNTRY MANAGER, MASTERCARD

Cash Is Expensive And Risky

Mastercard is a company that stays on top of payment trends by carefully monitoring consumer needs, while its combination of safe and flexible technologies, data insights and partnerships ensure that Mastercard can accelerate the digital shift in a meaningful way

Acrisis can be a generator of thinking actually tried Ecommerce for the first time support. We are strongly aligned to partners that’s out-of-the-box, and consid- during the lockdown. What we need to bear throughout the ecosystem and some of our erations that innovations should in mind is that today’s changes are pioneering most recent educational initiatives include be market-relevant and tailored tomorrow’s innovations. the Guide for Safe and Secure Online Shopping to actual needs. People are now increasingly with USAID, SurfShop intensive workshops relying on the practicality, safety and speed Given that Serbia has been a predominantly with the Association of young businessmen of of electronic payments, but it remains to be cash market, do we need additional education Serbia, the eCommerce Association Academy, seen how they will use them on how to use modern technologies? What on-boarding support for existing and new role does Mastercard play in this? online shops in partnership with OTP Bank, etc. The pandemic brought some new trends. - The cash economy is still massive and what We’ll continue with education and relevant Would we be right in saying that some innova- we need to understand as a society is that cash launches to ensure that each party maximizes tions planned for next year were introduced is an expensive and risky burden for future the potential that digital technologies have in a few months of this year? growth, and that technology actually helps to offer. - If there is something positive in the pan- make markets more resilient and sustainable. demic, it is the openness with which consumers Only when parties understand how technolo- Are you ready for the dynamic growth of embraced new payment methods users among both consumers and and the readiness of retailers and financial institutions to cater to the continuing shift in consumer habits. The growth of cashless, Only when parties understand how technologies and concrete solutions work will they be willing to try retailers? - The on-going digital evolution will only accelerate further and businesses that bravely embrace contactless and online payments innovations will have the highest are such examples – the recommendations gies and concrete solutions work will they be chances of achieving sustainable growth. The of the WHO promoting card usage drove willing to try them out, and then practice builds digital economy is needed more than ever people away from excessive amounts of cash habit and usage. before and we mustn’t forget that it implies and ATMs. We’re seeing a strong push among Focusing on Ecommerce, there is a need a global scale. Mastercard’s forte is our global retailers for contactless payments, which to continue educating cardholders on how to network, which processes more than 87 billion consumers strongly support, so in this light navigate online shopping. At the same time, transactions per year and enables us to easily we increased the limit for PIN-less contactless retailers need to be online in order to avoid scale upstream and downstream demand, while payments from 3,000 to 4,000 dinars, as an falling off shoppers’ radars, as well as to excel our unique position within the payment ecoadditional element promoting peace-of-mind at end-to-end customer service. Financial and system ensures that we can provide relevant when people shop in-store. But it’s online pay- regulatory sectors must facilitate the grow- support to all stakeholders in their efforts to ments that have become the new first choice ing demand, and the best way to do that is to expand. We are looking forward to this dynamic for consumers, with our latest MasterIndex adapt global success stories. All these can be growth, because it will confirm that the market Serbia study showing that 10% of people achieved with proper, timely and educated is safely headed along the digitization route.