The “Visa Back to Business Study – 2021 Outlook” concludes that the continued small and micro business (“SMB”) shift towards digital commerce will evolve in the New Year and bring an increased focus on areas such as security and fraud prevention, and more emerging payment tools such as ‘buy now, pay later’ and mobile payment acceptance.
Hong Kong data
- 57% of SMBs are selling products and services online more, compared to 43% worldwide.
- 96% SMBs have encountered consumer concerns about fraud over their new use of technology — the most of any market, compared to the global average of 69% — disrupting positive engagement with their customers.
- 39% of consumers still go into stores to browse, which is more than any other market surveyed (the global average being 22%).
Singapore data
- 82% of Singapore SMBs expect consumers to prefer contactless as much, or more than, they do now, versus 74% globally.
- 69% of consumers in Singapore have adjusted to using contactless payments whenever possible in the past three months, with the global proportion being 56%.
- 78% would prefer to use contactless payments even more than they are currently are.
- 61% of Singapore consumers were shopping online whenever possible, above the global average of 52%
Where investment dollars are headed in 2021 (Global outlook)
Globally, SMBs are assessing what other payment technologies are critical to meeting today’s consumer expectations, with results led by security and fraud management software (47%), contactless or mobile payment acceptance (44%), accepting payments via a mobile device (41%), instalments or ‘buy now, pay later’ (36%) and digital backend payment operations (31%).
“With greater hindsight into 2020, we can clearly see that the digital payment experiences that excelled the most – contactless and eCommerce – were driven out of necessity and have become more habitual in people’s daily lives at a pace not often seen,” said Kevin Phalen, global head of business solutions, Visa.
“If 2020 was the year of contactless and eCommerce, results of this study tell us that 2021 will bring greater attention to security and fraud prevention, and trial of more emerging digital commerce tools that help businesses thrive.”
