New survey shows payment choice still important to consumers
10 December 2024
A new survey published last week has highlighted that both payment choice and the ability to pay securely matters to consumers and that cash still plays a vital role in people’s finances across the globe.
The findings, from leading payments platform ‘Paysafe’ are part of their, ‘Inside the Wallet: How Consumers are spending and saving in 2024’ survey, conducted this summer, which set out to investigate how the increases in the cost of living have continued to influence consumer spending patterns and how things have changed over the past year.
The overarching message from the survey shows that as people are forced to keep evaluating their spending to save money, businesses must win their customer’s trust and cater towards their payment choices – including cash – with 43% of consumers saying they have abandoned a purchase at some point this year because their payment method of choice wasn’t available to them.
Similarly, more than half of those surveyed (54%), said security is an important factor when deciding how to pay, and being forced to use digital payments that don’t protect their data or using websites that don’t include advanced security steps, often puts them off purchasing online. 47% of those surveyed don’t feel comfortable entering their financial data when paying online over security concerns.
Fears over a cashless society
When it comes to the prospect of a cashless society, this also doesn’t sit well with consumers and businesses alike – with 63% worried about losing access to cash – something that the government are currently trying to address with the introduction of new rules from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that came into force this September.
Consumers are adamant that they want access to cash to buy goods and services both online and in person. 44% would prefer to reserve/secure goods online and pay in cash when collecting from their local store. 35% of consumers also said they would feel uncomfortable leaving home without taking either cash or a physical card with them to pay for things.
Put simply, for many customer segments across all age groups, cash is easier, more private and, for some, their only payment option - cash continues to play a role in many people’s day-to-day lives, with around 1 in ten people still being paid in cash.
The Volumatic viewpoint
As leading cash handling and industry experts, the findings in the Paysafe survey are no surprise to Volumatic.
In August 2021, in the aftermath of the global pandemic, which saw a huge rise in the number of card and digital payments due to misinformation that using cash was somehow helping to spread Covid-19 (since confirmed as completely untrue by the World Health Organisation), Volumatic joined forces with other industry heavyweights including the Bank of England, Cash Essentials and Vaultex to produce a white paper, ‘Consumers Demand Payment Choice,’ which found that the most important factor was businesses offering consumers choice when it comes to payment methods.
Payment choice matters
This desire to keep payment choice alive has been proven time and time again since the publication of our white paper, with the Bank of England, UK Cash Supply Alliance, independent financial consultants Enryo and major grocery retailer The Co-op Food Group all supporting cash at Volumatic’s Cash 2030 Conference in 2022.
Support for cash usage and payment choice was also echoed in The Cash Census Report from the RSA (April 2022); research from ATM providers LINK (August 2022), that saw a surge in cash withdrawals as the cost of living crisis hit; a report from Enryo (May 2023) that found 71% of consumers used cash in the last week to pay for something, and most recently, new rules introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (September 2024), which aim to protect access to cash for both businesses and consumers with the introduction of new banking hubs to serve those who have lost banking facilities in recent years.
Alongside this, the annual Cyber Security Breaches Survey has shown that the number of cyber attacks is continually rising (currently 50% of businesses have experienced some sort of cyber attack over the last 12 months), putting more and more digital payments under threat and making consumers, particularly those over 45 years of age, more concerned about making large online purchases.
Mike Severs, Sales & Marketing Director at Volumatic said: “We’ve known for a long time now that consumers care very much about payment choice and access to cash. We’re not against any other forms of payment, but we know how many people are still reliant on cash in the UK, and how many people still want to be able to access and make purchases with cash every week.”
“Cyber-attacks are becoming a bigger threat year after year, meaning customers also want to ensure their purchases are secure and their data remains private, so a desire to pay in cash for some purchases is only natural and businesses need to accommodate that. Cash remains the most resilient form of payment around, allowing freedom, privacy, security and inclusivity.”