A touch of technology in every breath of life is something the current generation is dependent on. There was a time when technology was present with limitations and conditions. A time when technology was an exhaustive resource. Today it’s ever present and limited only to an individual’s imagination. Looking from a consumer’s point of view, it is awe-inspiring to see the immense variety of options we have today from shopping to making payments that too at the comfort of your home.

The way payments are made feels magical these days, as a viral wave of digitization is spreading like waves. Earlier only big businesses were able to invest on technology towards digital transformations and creating a tech savvy experience for their customers. Contrastingly today, you don’t need much investment for digitizing. Since it’s ready and easily available, small businesses are outshining and becoming successful because they can offer payment methods attractive to their audience.

Probing into some interesting payment methods offered by small businesses in 2023

Digital wallets, the most preferred payment method

The pandemic in a way greatly enhanced the success of digital payments. Smartphones have the option of pre loading money into your digital wallets, now giving access to both buyers and sellers to act as a digital payment’s portal sending and receiving money with just a single tap. This was an absolute winner to attract the Gen Zs and create a new payments trend within 2.7 billion using digital wallets today. Stepping into 2023 tap to pay will be the most used POS payment method expectedly making credit & debit cards dormant. Going cashless is the way of living and digital wallets can make it happen.

Wave Pay, A frictionless method to make payment

Wave pay is going to be a benchmark method of payment since the use of smartphones are at peak levels. All you need to do is wave your smartphones across the reader and the payment is done. It uses NFC technology to identify the POS system and transact within a blink of an eye. Unlike the traditional method of entering a pin number inside payment apps, this would be a very convenient and a faster mode of payment with solid encryption, transferring money to the point-of-sale system instantly. A sure shot payment method to look out for in 2023. Smartphone giants like google, apple and Samsung have already established their wave pay systems, which users enjoy as an inbuilt feature in their smartphones.

Biometric Pay, the essence of secure payments

The concern for having absolute security with payments is the most demanded feature considering the kind of cyber security threats and scams that has been a recurring incident over the past years. There is a whole niche of people who want to have their payment methods to be highly secure than being fancy. Biometric payments are on the rise today, which supports payment authorization using the biological patters unique to an individual human structural composition. Verifications to process a payment request can happen only through fingerprint scans, facial recognition, iris recognition and vein mapping. Technology has come so far as to give a guarantee from crucial identity thefts and frauds. Such indemnity is the power biometric pay can provide. With the unique security it offers biometric pay will only become more popular and an in-demand payment method in the years to come.

Voice Transactions, An AI based payment system

It has become a matter of comfort and ease of access having AI assistants like Smart speakers and speech assistants at everybody’s homes. Today, you can talk to your AI assistant to find out a huge range of products sold by E-commerce sellers and just give a command to make the payments and finish your purchase. These AI assistants have a sharp recognition for an individual’s vocal frequency and articulation to understand commands and take action. You can talk to your home assistants today and make your payments to finalize your purchases sitting in your bean bag not having to move an inch to make payments. Based on a recent survey from Statista, 35% users have been buying home care, electronics, groceries and clothing through voice transactions at the comfort of their home. Maybe you should get your own AI assistant before winter comes back.

Buy now, Pay Later

The concept of making a purchase today and paying later has been on the spotlights of shopping for a good amount of time now and we can assure this is going to be a method of buying that will see no end. Sellers offering pay later services have made the affordability of making purchases at constrained times for customers totally pressure less and convenient. This has only increased the spending capacity of individuals and attracted more sales for sellers. It is no wonder having such freedom of spending that BNPL gives, can only see a positive raise within the league of payment methods today. It is highly expected to replace credit cards and other traditional methods of payments in 2023.

Where are these Digital payment methods leading to?

May it be a business or an individual buyer, it is a transparent fact that one cannot survive without being digitally sound with their payment methods. We have come so far as to being physical with money to going empty handed for shopping these days. We never know what kind of new payment method is coming towards us in the future, but these digital payment methods are here to stay and in the future bring in many more technologically advanced versions. So, lets expect something new and keep adapting to the latest payment trends just to make sure we are never left behind. Its time we removed the expiry tag from our payment methods and keep up with the latest trends.