Future of Money 2021: Journey to next-level commerce

As merchants adapt to a fast-changing landscape, new innovations in touchless commerce are ushering in an age of frictionless, secure checkout experiences, with data at its heart.

Payments technology has transformed over the last decade and specifically in the past 12 months the coronavirus pan- demic has been a catalyst for a shift in strategic thinking. Merchants have had to pivot from their in-store operations and quickly. With COVID-19 as an added stimulant, ecommerce sales in the UK increased by 36 per cent in 2020, the highest annual growth in 13 years, according to the IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index.

The pandemic has accelerated imple- mentation and adoption of payment technology. By enabling merchants to quickly meet customer expec- tations for online and mobile pay- ments, touchless commerce became mainstream sooner than expected. Supported by new solutions, including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay and integrated digital wallets, custom- ers can now have complete control of their checkout and payment data.

“This only further supports the urgent need for businesses to have the latest technology and omnichannel capa- bilities,” says Christopher Kronenthal, president and chief technology officer at FreedomPay, a data-driven com- merce platform specialising in robust solutions across payments, security, identity and data analytics.