Since the gen­e­sis of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, busi­ness­es have had to piv­ot and con­form to the needs of to­day’s con­sumers who re­quire ex­pe­ri­ences that are con­ve­nient, con­tact­less, clean and phys­i­cal­ly dis­tant.

On­line pur­chas­es for es­sen­tial items such as gro­ceries and house­hold sup­plies have in­creased.

And even when the pan­dem­ic is far be­hind us, it is like­ly that there will be long last­ing changes to con­sumer be­hav­iour as they con­tin­ue to use elec­tron­ic forms of pay­ments such as in­ter­net bank­ing, point of sale, mo­bile wal­lets and pay­ment apps.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of RBC Roy­al Bank (T&T) Richard Down­ie said go­ing cash­less “en­ables faster, more con­ve­nient, and eas­i­er rec­on­cil­i­a­tion com­pared to cash trans­ac­tions.”

Down­ie said there is an in­crease in trans­paren­cy both in terms of dig­i­tal track­ing and in­creased ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“Con­sumers and busi­ness­es have greater se­cu­ri­ty since there is less han­dling, stor­ing, and ex­chang­ing of bulky ban­knotes. If se­cu­ri­ty is breached, funds are eas­i­er to re­cov­er where­as with cash, that’s less like­ly,” Down­ie stat­ed.

“Busi­ness­es can now be open 24/7 while hav­ing re­duced ad­min­is­tra­tion and over­head costs due to trans­ac­tions be­ing con­tact­less,” he stat­ed.

Down­ie stat­ed that there are a range of op­tions that busi­ness­es can ex­plore to tran­si­tion to dig­i­tal ser­vices.

“You can start by build­ing a web­site or an app, then in­te­grate con­tact­less point of sale eCom­merce ser­vices. This al­lows cus­tomers to eas­i­ly use their deb­it/cred­it cards or do com­plete­ly wire­less pay­ments,” Down­ie stat­ed.

Down­ie said in this way as your busi­ness grows, your use of dig­i­tal plat­forms will seam­less­ly fol­low.

“In­di­vid­u­als who do not have ready ac­cess to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions pay more for cash ser­vices (in­di­rect fees, trav­el costs) and in­crease vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty for theft and/or rob­bery due to the high vol­ume of cash in hand,” Down­ie stat­ed.”

He said even small busi­ness­es are not left out in this re­gard.

“Lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs in the Caribbean can eas­i­ly ac­cess elec­tron­ic so­lu­tions that are af­ford­able and de­signed with them in mind,” Down­ie stat­ed.

He said an ex­am­ple of this is RBC EZ­Pay 2.0 POS pay­ment de­vice.

Down­ie said this de­vice is ide­al for the on-the-go en­tre­pre­neur, who can use it to con­duct safe and se­cure trans­ac­tions via chip and pin, and con­tact­less pay­ments.

He said the dive ac­cepts both deb­it and cred­it cards and is af­ford­able.

“En­tre­pre­neurs can al­so use so­cial me­dia plat­forms to ac­cept pay­ment—a ser­vice avail­able now through Fy­garo in as­so­ci­a­tion with RBC.

Down­ie said ma­ture clients must not be left out in thrust for a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

“As a fi­nan­cial sec­tor, we must en­sure we are fo­cus­ing on so­lu­tions to meet the needs of clients as they age and in­vest the time to show them how dig­i­tal so­lu­tions add val­ue. Cre­at­ing a user-friend­ly, vi­su­al step-by-step process is one way we help ease the tran­si­tion to dig­i­tal bank­ing,” he stat­ed.

Down­ie said cash­less trans­ac­tions add pro­tec­tion to trans­ac­tions.

“In­creased cash-based se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns such as cheque fraud, cost/loss of re­turned/ dis­hon­oured cheques, and time de­lays to ac­cess funds is help­ing to has­ten the tran­si­tion to elec­tron­ic so­lu­tions for busi­ness­es,” Down­ie stat­ed.

“For con­sumers, go­ing cash­less helps in­crease se­cu­ri­ty in ar­eas such as ATM fraud with se­cu­ri­ty de­vices like im­proved cash slots to pre­vent card skim­ming. A dig­i­tal pay­ment plat­form is en­crypt­ed, more se­cure and faster,” he stat­ed.

Down­ie said go­ing cash­less ben­e­fits both con­sumers, busi­ness­es and the gov­ern­ment.

“For the con­sumer, go­ing cash­less of­fers in­creased con­ve­nience and ser­vice op­tions, a re­duced risk of cash re­lat­ed crimes and cheap­er ac­cess to dig­i­tal bank­ing so­lu­tions,” Down­ie stat­ed.

“For your busi­ness, it of­fers re­duced loss of in­come and cash han­dling costs (for stor­ing, pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of cash). It al­lows for faster trans­ac­tions and set­tle­ment time, an in­crease in cash flow man­age­ment and can help to cap­ture the non-cash car­ry­ing con­sumer base,” he stat­ed.

“For the gov­ern­ment, go­ing cash­less of­fers in­creased tax col­lec­tion, greater fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion and in­crease eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” Down­ie stat­ed.