Blog 1: Convenience isn’t just for London
In this first blog of 2020 I want to reflect on the consumer trend of convenience, and how I see it playing out in the world of payments. As I’ve spoken about before, mostly recently at FinTechConnect in December, the story of 2019 in payments was that the trends that we’ve been talking about for some time are actually happening. In particular, there is a secular shift underway from cash to electronic forms of payment. We see this happening in the UK where, according to UK Finance, debit card volumes overtook cash in 2017 - in other words, we are well past the tipping point. The shift to debit being is driven by the dramatic growth in contactless, now at over £6bn a month, up 33% year on year. This shift is not only happening in the UK: other countries such as Sweden and South Korea are well ahead, whilst in the US where contactless has historically struggled, issuers are starting to rollout contactless cards and there is increased merchant acceptance. For example, the New Yor