The Rise of e-Wallets and Their Benefits in the Payments Ecosystem The rapid evolution of the payments industry has rattled the e-commerce business and has leapfrogged many years of development with the rapid surge of fin-tech companies who are constantly disrupting the market with innovative technology and new payment methods. Devices from refrigerators to smart watches now all feature payment capabilities, and technologies like blockchain are even heading towards completely changing the verification methods of card payments. With increased adoption of smartphones, payment patterns have seen a change, which has led to the launch of e-wallets. TEXT BY LUIS SANTINE, CX PAY
For a while e-wallets were the revolutionary solution to facilitating payment transactions. Despite being around since the initial stages of e-commerce, to this region of the world, e-wallets or digital wallets are a relatively new entrant in the payment space and are quickly catching on to bring a change in small-value transactions. Many businesses and services, ranging from bill payment, taxi fares to small retail stores make use of
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CURAÇAO BUSINESS
e-wallets to facilitate payments. And while almost 95% of retail transactions still happen in cash, this is the market where e-wallet providers are looking to make the biggest splash by converting a sizable chunk of these cash payments into digital transactions. Even though e-wallets do not enjoy similar popularity in the Caribbean and Latin American region as the rest of the world,
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The main benefit for consumers is that they get a seamless, one-stop shopping experience where they can place orders, redeem coupons, gain loyalty points, refill cards, and make in-store payments without ever having to leave one app.
e-wallet as a financial payment product does have a legitimate place in the financial system. It’s therefore worth considering e-wallets exist and what widespread problems they solve. Wallets have entered the payment ecosystem to help solve the problem that for the most part, financial institutions have failed to resolve for customers—that of convenience and ease of transaction. The main purpose of e-wallets is to replace physical wallets in your pockets and help create as much of a cashless society as possible. One of the greatest added values that e-wallets present are created by loyalty programs. This is driven primarily by retailer mobile
