Payments Flash-Forward: Why December 2020 Will Be One To Remember

Article from PYMNTS.com eBook Payments Flash-Forward: Why December 2020 Will Be One To Remember

Instant payments are more popular than they’ve ever been. The share of U.S. consumers who received an instant disbursement has increased almost 4x during the past three years to 42.2% in 2019. And while it’s true that most consumers today would prefer an instant digital payment over other payment methods, not everyone prefers to get that payment in the exact same way.

For instant payments to reach ubiquity, there has to be choice.

In the recent PYMNTS.com Satisfaction Index, it was reported that 38.2% of consumers would like to receive instant payments to their bank account, 11.7% would like them paid to their debit cards, 10.8% to their credit cards, and the remaining to digital wallets and prepaid cards. The insight is this: The customer wants to choose how they would like to be paid – and only to an already existing mechanism. Forget having to sign up for something new just to receive funds!

Enterprises are catching on. While early pioneers in GIG Economy and P2P use cases paved the way with push-to-card solutions, more companies in 2020 will be tailoring their instant payment solutions to shift choice to the consumer, allowing them the flexibility to receive their funds in the easiest way that suits their needs.

And that means their challenge is not just about how to connect to a card network, but rather to create a simple and intuitive customer experience that offers an array of payment options—including legacy mechanisms like ACH and check—through a disbursements marketplace, like Ingo Money.

In addition to payment option choice, channel choice is important too, which will give rise next year to omni-channel customer experiences that bring choice in the way a customer interacts with a payor to receive their funds across online, mobile, telephone and retail channels.

As for which industries will get into the instant payments game, next year’s players will include more of the smokestack economy, led by the insurance industry, as well as the treasury banks that will deliver easy-to-consume technical infrastructure and platforms for their treasury clients’ customers and vendors.

2020 will be the year of choice. Banks and businesses will offer their customers choice in how quickly they are paid. Choice in the methods and accounts to which they receive their funds. Choice in how they engage. And by dramatically improving the customer experience—meeting consumer demand for speed, convenience and choice—we will see the emergence of a truly modern disbursements experience.

Drew Edwards
CEO at Ingo Money

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